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【香港保衛戰當年今日・十八】

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diff --git a/columns.xml b/columns.xml index 4457bade..36b3e836 100644 --- a/columns.xml +++ b/columns.xml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Jekyll2023-11-04T10:11:04+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns.xmlThe Republic of Agora | ColumnsUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.34 © MMXXIII怪谁？2023-10-19T12:00:00+08:002023-10-19T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns/who-is-to-blame<p>拒绝考虑巴以冲突的原委，是一场道德灾难。</p> +Jekyll2023-11-06T09:05:50+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns.xmlThe Republic of Agora | ColumnsUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.34 © MMXXIII怪谁？2023-10-19T12:00:00+08:002023-10-19T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns/who-is-to-blame<p>拒绝考虑巴以冲突的原委，是一场道德灾难。</p> <!--more--> diff --git a/feed.xml b/feed.xml index 3005c56d..77563230 100644 --- a/feed.xml +++ b/feed.xml @@ -1 +1 @@ -Jekyll2023-11-04T10:11:04+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/feed.xmlThe Republic of AgoraUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.34 © MMXXIII \ No newline at end of file +Jekyll2023-11-06T09:05:50+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/feed.xmlThe Republic of AgoraUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.34 © MMXXIII \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/heros.xml b/heros.xml index da2f45be..10c330e2 100644 --- a/heros.xml +++ b/heros.xml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Jekyll2023-11-04T10:11:04+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HerosUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.34 © MMXXIII自由主义的四次“左右之争”（下）2023-10-16T12:00:00+08:002023-10-16T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros/Byron-a1_c-chinese-liberalists-four-left-right-debates-part-2<p>如果说在2016年改良与变革之争时，自由主义者里的变革派尚且缺乏一个“现实基础”，那到2018年时，这个现实基础来了，就是轰轰烈烈的#MeToo运动。</p> +Jekyll2023-11-06T09:05:50+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HerosUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.34 © MMXXIII自由主义的四次“左右之争”（下）2023-10-16T12:00:00+08:002023-10-16T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros/Byron-a1_c-chinese-liberalists-four-left-right-debates-part-2<p>如果说在2016年改良与变革之争时，自由主义者里的变革派尚且缺乏一个“现实基础”，那到2018年时，这个现实基础来了，就是轰轰烈烈的#MeToo运动。</p> <!--more--> diff --git a/hkers.xml b/hkers.xml index 7c366571..3c81cc72 100644 --- a/hkers.xml +++ b/hkers.xml @@ -1,4 +1,336 @@ -Jekyll2023-11-04T10:11:04+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HkersUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.34 © MMXXIIIBlockchain For Democracies2023-10-25T12:00:00+08:002023-10-25T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/blockchain-for-democracies<p><em>In a world increasingly overflowing with data, blockchain is neither a panacea nor solely an instrument of cryptocurrencies but rather a tool that offers intriguing applications to support democratic governance, including in Ukraine.</em></p> +Jekyll2023-11-06T09:05:50+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HkersUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.34 © MMXXIIITaliban’s Campaign Against IS2023-10-25T12:00:00+08:002023-10-25T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/talibans-campaign-against-islamic-state<p><em>This paper examines the strategies employed by the Taliban in response to the threat posed by the Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K) in 2021–22.</em></p> + +<excerpt /> + +<p>Despite a recent decline, the Islamic State (IS), and its South Asian branch IS-K, remains one of the most resilient terrorist organisations on the planet – as recent reports of it planning attacks in Turkey and Europe show. Research carried out in late 2021 to mid-2022 with Taliban and IS members shows that IS-K represented a serious challenge for the Taliban in Afghanistan in this period. While they initially dismissed the threat from IS-K, the Taliban soon developed capabilities to confront it – these capabilities, and IS-K’s responses to them, are the subject of this paper.</p> + +<p>The paper outlines five key counter-IS techniques that the Taliban adopted after August 2021: indiscriminate repression; selective repression; choking-off tactics; reconciliation deals; and elite bargaining.</p> + +<p>While their initial response was to indulge in indiscriminate repression, the Taliban gradually moved towards an approach focused on selective repression, with the aim of leaving the local communities in areas of IS-K activity relatively untouched. They also considerably improved their intelligence capabilities in this period. By the second half of 2022, the Taliban had succeeded in destroying enough IS-K cells and blocking enough of the group’s funding to drive down its activities and contain the threat. The Taliban also experimented with reconciliation and reintegration, and managed to persuade a few hundred IS-K members in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province to surrender, contributing decisively to the dismantling of most of IS-K’s organisation there.</p> + +<p>However, there were also significant flaws in the Taliban’s approach. This paper finds that their selective approach to tackling IS-K struggled to find firm footing in the absence of a solid system of the rule of law and of external oversight. The Taliban’s leadership appear to be struggling to figure out how to ensure that the lower layers of their security apparatus follow orders to avoid arbitrary violence. The paper further shows how the Taliban have failed to follow through with their initially promising reconciliation and reintegration efforts.</p> + +<p>For its part, IS-K showed remarkable organisational resilience in response to the rising tide of the Taliban’s counterterrorism efforts. The group transformed itself into an underground organisation, relinquishing all its bases and moving most of its assets to northern Afghanistan. With this approach, and true to the reputation of its founding organisation, IS, IS-K in Afghanistan managed to survive, even when faced with potentially existential challenges, such as a crackdown on its financial hub in Turkey. IS-K has come increasingly to rely on online activities, including for recruitment.</p> + +<p>The Taliban learned faster than most observers expected them to in response to the challenge of IS-K, and scored significant successes. The longer-term prospects of their counter-IS efforts, however, remain dependent on IS-K continuing to struggle financially, because the drivers of mobilisation into its Afghan ranks remain largely unaddressed.</p> + +<h3 id="introduction">Introduction</h3> + +<p>The Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August 2021. As practitioners of insurgent warfare, they had to start learning almost overnight ways of doing counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, especially against what emerged as their main challenger, the Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K). Their early efforts have been characterised as “brutal” and “ineffective”. Others have stated a belief that that the Emirate would not be able to successfully tackle IS-K on its own. As this paper will show, the Taliban initially relied largely on ruthless tactics. However, as shown in a 2023 paper by this author, despite the (very limited) financial means and human resources available, in subsequent months the Taliban’s approach has not been exclusively brutal and at the same time was quite effective, at least in the short term. Indeed, the Taliban, widely seen during their “jihad” (2002–21) as a force of nature, were in reality even then already displaying considerable organisational skills.</p> + +<p>This empirical research paper forms part of the EU-funded STRIVE Afghanistan project, and aims to further discuss and analyse how the Taliban applied their organisational capital to countering IS-K. The guiding questions that this paper seeks to answer are: how did the Taliban structure their post-August 2021 counter-IS mix of tactics, how successful were these in fighting IS-K, how did IS-K adapt, and did the Taliban try to achieve long-term stability, seeking non-kinetic approaches and reducing reliance on violence? Since the Taliban do not frame their counter-IS effort with reference to the Western understanding of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, the author will also avoid referring to such terminologies, and will instead examine their specific tactics. As noted in a rare study of non-Western responses to terrorism, Western theorisations of terrorism and counterterrorism might not be very useful in analysing such efforts by non-Western states and actors.</p> + +<p>The discussion focuses on how, after August 2021, the Taliban practised violent repression, both indiscriminately, against people not directly involved in the armed opposition, and selectively, against active insurgents. It also covers how the Taliban have tried to choke off the armed opposition, denying it access to population, supply routes and financial flows. The paper finally looks at whether there may be signs of awareness among the new Taliban elite that their long-term self-interest might be better served by developing reconciliation programmes of some kind, or by reaching some elite bargain.</p> + +<p>There are not many large-scale counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts that have altogether eschewed all forms of ruthless violence, so analysing a “counter” effort requires some careful qualifications. The first useful distinction here is between selective and indiscriminate violence. A regime that focuses its violence on its enemies can deliver a clear message that those who challenge it will meet a terrible fate, while political quietism (accepting the status quo without resistance) is rewarded. Encouraging quietism while targeting “extremists” (defined as anti-ruling system elements) should therefore be a winning approach, even if utterly violent. The question that follows, then, is why ruling elites should be concerned about achieving anything more than an efficient (selective) repression. This is a pertinent question especially where a violent conflict has already taken off. At that point, some form of repression can no longer be avoided. Following a long-term pattern of indiscriminate violence makes non-violent alternatives hard to buy into for any opponent. However, even choosing selective violence does not necessarily make non-violent alternatives easy to pursue. Different actors within any government will each make their own assessments on where the boundary between violent extremists and quietists may lie, resulting in divisions within a state apparatus and a ruling elite.</p> + +<p>Another important distinction is that violent repression may or may not be accompanied by efforts to negotiate local reintegration deals, with the collaboration of local elites. Such deals are often deemed to be a more effective long-term way of stabilising a polity than relying solely on violence, not least because they can potentially create bonds between ruling and local elites, eventually resulting in the latter gaining sufficient leverage with the centre to effectively constrain its use of arbitrary power. Similarly, repression can also be accompanied by elite bargaining, that is, power sharing.</p> + +<p>There are also ways of choking off armed opposition with no political concessions and no negotiations, without using extreme violence. Large-scale military deployments, for example, which, in the presence of adequate levels of manpower, can be achieved without reliance on indiscriminate use of firepower, can result in the capture of territory and assertion of control over the population, reducing or denying the ability of the opposition to recruit new members, access sanctuaries, train and transfer supplies. In other words, the aim of such large operations need not be to destroy the enemy, but can be to choke it off. An even better example of choking-off tactics is financial disruption, where violence plays a very small part. These tactics are particularly appealing to ruling elites, but are not necessarily within their reach. It takes an army considerably superior to the opposing forces to monopolise control over territory and population, and it takes a sophisticated intelligence apparatus to block financial flows towards the armed opposition. Moreover, choking-off tactics can be a protracted affair and even an inconclusive one, depending on the skill of the opponents. An armed opposition could continue operating under more adverse conditions even with little or no access to the wider population, and new channels for transferring cash to rebels can always be devised by creative sanctions busters.</p> + +<p>This is a reason for ruling elites not to write off political tactics completely. There are other reasons as well for not writing off local reintegration deals and elite bargains. One possible incentive to invest in reconciliation or an elite bargain is the awareness within the ranks of the ruling elite that ruthless repressions, even when efficient in the short term, do not successfully remove the roots of opposition, but instead allow it to resurface generations later, or even sooner, leaving the state vulnerable. Another possible incentive is that repressions can drag on inconclusively and go through critical phases, with the final outcome being uncertain and involving a high cost to the ruling elites. In such contexts, softer alternatives to ruthless repression can gain traction.</p> + +<p>This paper is comprised of three chapters. The first examines the state of IS-K and the type of threat it presented to the Taliban as they took power, and how the Taliban assessed that threat. The second chapter discusses in detail how the Taliban sought to meet the IS-K challenge, examining each tactic in turn: indiscriminate repression; selective repression; choking-off tactics; local reconciliation and reintegration; and elite bargaining. The third and final chapter examines IS-K’s response to the Taliban.</p> + +<p>To protect sources, neither the names of the interviewees nor their exact roles in their organisations have been disclosed. IS-K interviewees are classified as either “commanders” (leaders of a tactical group of five to 30 men) or “cadres” (district and provincial-level leaders, or managers of support departments such as logistics or finance, among others).</p> + +<h4 id="methodology">Methodology</h4> + +<p>With the Taliban–IS-K conflict still under way, any findings of this paper can be only partial and preliminary. There are also clear limitations to the research methodology adopted: research was by necessity limited to oral sources, with limited support from news reports and policy-oriented analysis – which are also often partial – and no access to primary written sources, such as the Emirate’s records, or of course to any internal IS-K documents.</p> + +<p>Researching this topic required a number of methodological compromises given that conducting primary research in a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is extremely difficult. IS-K recruiters and members were, of course, the most difficult to speak to, primarily because they have increasingly been in hiding. As a result, the body of data collected is inevitably incomplete and follow-up on specific themes was often not possible. The analysis contained in the paper inevitably reflects this. However, it should be noted that when reached and given a proper introduction by a third party, such as a relative, friend, colleague or respected individual, even members of IS-K proved quite talkative. This should not be a surprise, as the literature shows that members of violent extremist organisations are typically proud of being members and often brag about their own activities, even when they are supposed to be operating deep underground, as in Europe. The risk faced by this type of research is therefore not one of not obtaining access. There are other risks, however: that interviewees might be affected by a social-desirability bias, resulting in overstating their achievements, capabilities and/or resources; or by reverse causation, leading sources to provide prejudiced information about rival organisations. Mitigation measures are discussed below.</p> + +<p>Taliban officials were quite prudent in their answers, but thanks to their internal tensions and differences, Taliban interviewees were also quite often willing to discuss embarrassing details and to acknowledge limitations in their counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts. Taliban interviewees were often dismissive of the IS-K threat and overstated the progress made in countering that threat, while IS-K sources did the exact opposite. This was expected, and it was dealt with by interviewing multiple sources within both the Taliban and IS-K, and by spreading the research effort over 20 months, allowing for the time-testing of responses. This was particularly important and useful as it provided validation points for the reliability of the different sources. For example, initialTaliban dismissals of IS-K were proved wrong, as were IS-K’s triumphalist assumptions made in early 2022. The data points provided by sources could only be assessed against one another over time, as in the case of claims about IS-K moving to northern Afghanistan.</p> + +<p>While the author takes into account the literature relevant to the topic and the period, this paper relies mainly on empirical data collected through interviews. It is based on a series of 54 interviews, carried out between August 2021 and April 2023. Multiple interviews on both sides of the conflict and with non-aligned individuals, such as elders, clerics, former IS-K members and <em>hawala</em> traders, allowed for greater cross-referencing opportunities. The details are provided in the table below.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/wddBWob.png" alt="image01" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Table 1: Breakdown of Interviews.</strong> Source: Author generated.</em></p> + +<p>The research methodology was a hybrid of investigative journalistic and ethnographic interviewing. The questionnaires were adapted to each interviewee; there were, in fact, 54 different questionnaires. Questions evolved as knowledge of ongoing trends and developments expanded.</p> + +<p>The interviews were commissioned to three Afghan researchers in local languages (Pashto, Dari and Uzbek) and took place mostly in Afghanistan, with some interviews taking place in Pakistan. Two of the researchers were members of the Salafi community, a fact that facilitated access to IS-K sources and reduced risk to researchers to acceptable levels. All of the researchers had a background in journalism and/or research, had participated in previous research projects with a similar typology of interviewees, had been trained to undertake research with a similar methodology, and had contacts or personal/family relations with Taliban and/or IS-K members, which proved crucial in reaching out and gaining access to interviewees.</p> + +<p>The risk that respondents might use the interviews to influence external observers or to misrepresent the facts was assumed from the start as a precautionary measure. This risk was mitigated by using different types of interviewees – such as members of either the Taliban or IS-K, elders of local communities where IS-K operates, clerics and traders – who represented contrasting points of view; by interviewing individuals separately and without them being aware of other interviews taking place; and by inserting questions to which the answer was already known, to verify responses. It proved particularly helpful to present interviewees with information gathered from other sources, such as local elders saying that IS-K members were struggling financially, and ask them to comment. Most IS-K sources could not avoid some degree of openness about apparently negative developments concerning IS-K. Public-domain sources, such as media reports and analytical studies, were also used, where available, to check the credibility of interviewees. The researchers chosen did not know one another, to avoid the risk of researcher collusion to manipulate the content of interviews, for example by inventing content to produce whatever they might have believed the project team wanted to hear. This is always a risk when interviews are carried out by field researchers while the project is being managed remotely. The field researchers were also informed that the purpose of the effort was simply to ascertain facts, and that there was no premium placed on specific findings. Finally, the data collected was validated as much as possible via consultations with independent experts and government and international organisations monitoring developments in Afghanistan, who, given the sensitivity of the topic, asked to remain anonymous.</p> + +<p>The interviewees were told that their answers would be used in an open-access publication, the type of which was not specified. The interviews were carried out in part face to face and in part over the phone – some interviewees were in locations that were difficult to access. All the interviews have been anonymised and all data that could lead to the identification of interviewees has been removed.</p> + +<h3 id="i-the-taliban-and-is-k-sources-of-enmity">I. The Taliban and IS-K: Sources of Enmity</h3> + +<p>The conflict between the Taliban and IS-K did not start in 2021. There was tension between IS-K and the Taliban from the moment IS-K was launched in January 2015. By May 2015, the two organisations were at war, competing over territory, but also over the loyalty of hardened jihadists, be they Afghans, Pakistanis, Central Asians or others. The elements most influenced by the global jihadist agenda were those most likely to be attracted by IS-K, even if its Salafist profile discouraged many who would otherwise have been interested. Several hundred members of the Taliban defected to IS-K, contributing much ill feeling. The fighting, mostly concentrated in Kajaki and Zabul (southern Afghanistan), Nangarhar and Kunar (eastern Afghanistan) and Darzab (northwestern Afghanistan), continued throughout the 2015–21 period and led sometimes to atrocities.</p> + +<p>In those years, the two rival insurgent organisations had their columns of fighters clashing in a kind of semi-regular warfare. The better-disciplined IS-K had an edge against poorly trained local Taliban militias in 2015–18, but the tables turned in 2019–20, when the Taliban started deploying their crack units against IS-K’s strongholds in eastern Afghanistan. After that and until August 2021, IS-K stayed away from confronting the Taliban head on and sought safety in more remote parts of the east, counting on the fact that the Taliban were still primarily busy fighting the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.</p> + +<p>For some time after the violence between the two organisations started in May 2015, IS-K did not produce much propaganda. It was only in more recent years that IS-K set up a large-scale propaganda campaign against the Taliban, challenging their credentials, both as a jihadist group and their religious credentials, especially what IS-K saw as their lax implementation of Islamic law. Friction between adherents of Salafism, a purist form of Islamic fundamentalism, and Hanafis – Deobandis in particular, but also Sufis – helped to feed the conflict. Although the Deobandis are described as being influenced by Salafism, Salafis see them as practitioners of an impure form of Islam. This is even truer of Sufis. Although IS-K initially downplayed its Salafi–jihadist ideology in the hope of attracting a wider range of supporters, after its appearance in 2015, it gradually took on an increasingly hardline Salafi character. The Taliban, on the other hand, became more and more diverse over time, incorporating, in particular, many members from a Muslim Brotherhood background, while the top leadership remained predominantly Deobandi-influenced, with a strong influence of Sufism as well. While a significant number of Salafis joined the Taliban’s jihad between 2003 and 2015, after 2015, most were attracted to IS-K.</p> + +<h3 id="ii-sizing-up-the-is-k-challenge-in-2021">II. Sizing Up the IS-K Challenge in 2021</h3> + +<h4 id="is-ks-manpower">IS-K’s Manpower</h4> + +<p>The extent to which IS-K represented a challenge to those in power in Afghanistan, be they the previous regime or the Taliban, has long been a topic of discussion. The UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, for example, which relies on assessment provided by member states, has provided constantly fluctuating numbers over time. According to IS-K’s own internal sources, IS-K leaders had at their disposal in July 2021 a force of up to 8,000 men. Of these:</p> + +<ul> + <li> + <p>Just over 1,100 were in Pakistan.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>The remaining force was mostly concentrated in eastern Afghanistan (Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan), where some 3,700 IS-K members included the bulk of its combat force, some village militias and much of its administrative structure, handling finances and logistics, keeping track of recruitment, making appointments and deciding transfers, planning training and indoctrination, and other tasks. From this area, moving back and forth to and from Pakistan was easy due to the porosity of the nearby border.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>The other important concentration was in the northeast, largely in Badakhshan, with almost 1,200 members in that region. This second concentration included well-trained combat forces and some administrative facilities, but was not very active militarily during this period, and instead sought to keep a low profile in central Badakhshan, chiefly in the Khastak valley.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Apart from a few hundred IS-K prison escapees, en route to the east, the rest of the force of IS-K (some 1,300–1,400 men) was at this point mainly spread around the south, the southeast, the region surrounding Kabul, the west, and in the main cities, where it operated underground, recruiting or organising terrorist attacks in urban areas. In several provinces, such as Kapisa, Logar, Ghazni, Paktia, Paktika and Khost, IS-K only had a thin layer of some tens of members, tasked with recruitment, intelligence gathering and preparing the ground for expansion in the future.</p> + </li> +</ul> + +<p>These figures are largely comparable with those provided by the intelligence services of member states to the UN, which put the membership of IS-K at 4,000 for the latter part of 2021. The figures collated by the UN monitoring committee likely relate to the more visible component of IS-K, that is, full-time fighters based in Afghanistan. As detailed by IS-K sources, of the numbers quoted above, around two-thirds (some 4,600) were fighters based in Afghanistan. A proportion of these were essentially village militias (hence quite invisible to external observers), and a few hundred members of terrorist hit teams.</p> + +<p>IS-K sources were claiming mass defections from Taliban ranks in the early months following the fall of Kabul. Such defections would be surprising in light of the morale issues affecting IS-K at that time (see below), and indeed this appears to have been a massively inflated claim. When asked about defections from the Taliban to IS-K after August 2021, IS-K sources had little concrete information to offer and could only cite five lower-level Taliban commanders in Kunar, three in Nangarhar and one in Khost who defected to IS-K. One source in the Emirate’s local apparatus acknowledged that defections from the ranks of the Taliban to IS-K did take place in the early post-takeover months, but had been limited in numbers. The most important defection to be confirmed, at least by local sources, was that of commander Mansoor Hesar with five sub-commanders and 70 fighters in Nangarhar in late August 2021. Another source within the Taliban confirmed only that in the early days post-takeover, two Taliban commanders from Dur Baba and Hisarak defected to IS-K: Mullah Yakub and <em>a’lim</em> Shamsi. Overall, there were few defections (especially when the total manpower of the Taliban is considered), and they added little to IS-K strength and included no high-profile individuals, thus offering little with which the IS-K propaganda machine could work.</p> + +<h4 id="is-ks-finances">IS-K’s Finances</h4> + +<p>IS-K’s efforts in this period seem to have been marred by financial shortcomings. Sources suggest that the group’s finance operations were badly mismanaged in late 2021 to early 2022. During this period, however, and in line with Taliban allegations, IS-K sources claimed connections with elements of Pakistan’s army and intelligence, translating into logistical help and support for IS-K’s efforts to raise money from “Islamic charities” in Pakistan. It has not, however, been possible to verify these claims.</p> + +<h4 id="is-k-morale">IS-K Morale</h4> + +<p>When the Taliban took over, the idea of giving up the fight was reportedly widespread within the ranks of IS-K. Nearly all of the seven former IS-K members interviewed stated that they had been attracted to IS-K to fight “American crusaders”, not the Taliban. This could have contributed to a decline in morale after August 2021 – although respondents might also have wanted to downplay any hatred for the Taliban that they might have harboured. The Taliban also benefited from war weariness in the country, including within the Salafi community. Even elders critical of the Taliban expressed happiness that the fighting had stopped. The defeats that the Taliban inflicted on IS-K in 2019–20 had also left a mark. A further indicator of low morale was the refusal of many detained members of IS-K to rejoin the group after Afghanistan’s prisons were emptied in the chaotic final days of the Islamic Republic. IS-K sources at the time claimed that thousands of escapees from government prisons had rejoined their ranks after the chaos of August 2021. It is clear, however, that, contrary to these claims, many did not rejoin at all, but went into hiding, trying to stay clear of both IS-K and the Taliban (see below on the lack of impact of escapees on IS-K’s strength). It may be added that all former members were reportedly aware that they could contact IS-K via Telegram to rejoin, but many did not take this opportunity. Taliban officials interviewed by the International Crisis Group quantified the escapees who rejoined IS-K in the “hundreds”, rather than in the thousands alleged by some sources.</p> + +<h4 id="how-the-taliban-assessed-is-k">How the Taliban Assessed IS-K</h4> + +<p>The Taliban’s initial neglect of the threat represented by IS-K was not due to any form of tolerance. Many senior Taliban viewed IS-K as a proxy organisation, established or manipulated by the security services of the previous regime and/or by those of neighbouring and regional countries, Pakistan in particular, with the intent of splitting the insurgency and undermining the Taliban. The Taliban thought that, with the previous regime gone and the war won, IS-K would be critically weakened by the disappearance of a critical source of support. Moreover, the Taliban’s belief was that IS-K lacked a mass base:</p> + +<blockquote> + <p>The problem is the Salafi ulema and mullahs, who inoculate the seed of hypocrisy and a very negative view of Hanafism in their Salafi followers … With the normal Salafi villagers, who don’t have any connection with Daesh [IS-K] and with the [Salafi] ulema, [the Taliban’s] relations are very good.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>There was also a belief that people had joined IS-K because of the salaries it was able to pay, thanks to generous funding from foreign supporters.</p> + +<p>The Taliban leadership, therefore, initially tended to underestimate the threat represented by IS-K. At the same time, while IS-K was not perceived as a strategic threat in August 2021, it was nonetheless considered a resolutely hostile and irreconcilable organisation of <em>“khawarij”</em>, against which the officials of the Emirate were ordered to take “aggressive and serious” action.</p> + +<h3 id="iii-the-talibans-counter-is-effort">III. The Taliban’s Counter-IS Effort</h3> + +<p>This chapter will discuss the five key counter-IS techniques that the Taliban adopted after August 2021, as outlined in the Introduction: indiscriminate repression; selective repression; choking-off tactics; reconciliation deals; and elite bargaining.</p> + +<h4 id="indiscriminate-repression">Indiscriminate Repression</h4> + +<p>The Taliban have in the past argued that indiscriminate revenge-taking and repression on the part of Afghan and US security forces in 2001–04 drove many into the ranks of the insurgency. These views were supported by the elders of insurgency-affected areas. Perhaps because very few local Taliban officials were active with the organisation in those years, they seem oblivious today to the obvious lessons that should have been derived from that experience. Indeed, some Taliban officials have sought to undermine IS-K by trying to crush its supporting networks and milieus. Many Taliban cadres had been fighting IS-K before, and had developed a deep hatred for the organisation, which emerges from virtually all the interviews that the research team carried out. Some also harboured a strong hostility towards the Salafi community, from which they knew the bulk of IS-K’s Afghan members came. Some Taliban equated the Salafi community with IS-K. The fact that the Taliban had experienced serious friction with Salafis since the expansion of their insurgency to the east in 2008–09 helped to strengthen these negative views.</p> + +<p>In some cases, indiscriminate repression was a standalone tactic. The best example of this approach in the early wave of post-takeover repression was Kunar’s governor, Haji Usman Turabi, who epitomised the tendency to conflate Salafism and IS-K. Turabi is nowadays acknowledged by members of the Taliban to be “ideologically against Salafism” and to have “killed several Salafi mullahs”. Turabi believed he knew where the main areas of support for IS-K were, and moved to crush local supporting networks and to shut down Salafi madrasas and mosques. All this led to outrage against him, and the Salafi ulema sent a delegation to Kabul to complain.</p> + +<p>In other cases, indiscriminate repression was coordinated with other counter-IS tactics. While attempting to undermine IS-K operations in Jalalabad, which was a key centre of IS-K’s campaign of urban terrorism, the Taliban targeted IS-K underground networks and sympathising milieus in Nangarhar. This campaign was initially very violent. A cadre who gained notoriety here for his ruthless approach to IS-K was Dr Bashir, who became head of the Taliban’s intelligence services, the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), for Nangarhar province in September 2021, and served in that position throughout 2022. Bashir shut down most of the Salafi madrasas and mosques of Nangarhar. Under Bashir’s leadership, the Taliban in Nangarhar adopted a proactive approach, with large-scale operations and extensive house-by-house searches, detaining many. Many extrajudicial executions of suspects took place under his tenure. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported 59 confirmed executions of IS-K suspects, mostly in Nangarhar during October to November 2021. Human Rights Watch indicates that more than 100 suspects were killed between August 2021 and April 2022 in Nangarhar. Salafi community leaders confirmed in February 2022 that in October to November around 100 members of the community were killed in this wave of violence, mostly in Nangarhar. Among them were senior Salafi preachers. Others fled or went into hiding.</p> + +<p>It seems clear that Bashir was orchestrating much of the violence, seemingly with the intent of intimidating IS-K support networks and the surrounding milieus – perhaps even the entire Salafi community – into negotiating deals with the Emirate that would guarantee them security in exchange for cutting off relations with IS-K. This approach has similarities with what some of the strongmen of the previous regime had been doing, such as Abdul Raziq in Kandahar, who managed to force local Taliban to negotiate with him after years of relentless and extreme pressure. The Taliban’s reconciliation effort is discussed more fully below.</p> + +<h4 id="selective-repression">Selective Repression</h4> + +<p>The outrage noted above in relation to Haji Usman Turabi’s indiscriminate repression in Kunar led to the Emirate’s authorities deciding to sack him and appoint in his stead Mawlavi Qasim, from Logar, who had served as shadow governor of Kunar during the Taliban’s insurgency (2002–21). Qasim was not popular in Kunar, where the local Taliban base demanded that a local Talib be appointed governor. He appears to have been chosen by Kabul because of his readiness to comply with their request that he avoid unnecessarily antagonising the Salafis, hence transitioning towards more selective repression. The Emirate’s leadership went ahead, even as a very unhappy Turabi threatened to split from the Taliban with his followers.</p> + +<p>Turabi’s removal suggests that the leadership in Kabul was seriously concerned about the reaction of the Salafi ulema. However, transitioning towards selective repression was never going to be a smooth path. Even if indiscriminate repression lessened after 2021, much damage had been done, as the repression entrenched the sense in the Salafi community that the new regime posed a critical threat to the community.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the new policy of selective repression that followed Turabi’s dismissal was not particularly popular with Taliban officials. Within the Taliban ranks there was denial that indiscriminate abuse had taken place. In the words of a police officer:</p> + +<blockquote> + <p>The Islamic Emirate always told the normal Salafi villagers [that is, not associated with IS-K] that it doesn’t have any problem with their sect, unless they support the enemy of Afghanistan, the Daesh <em>khawarij</em> … Those Salafi people arrested or killed by the Taliban, they had some kind of connection and relation with the Daesh <em>khawarij</em>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Even looking forward, doubts persisted that the new policy was appropriate. One GDI officer commented: “I have doubts [about some of the Salafi ulema and mullahs], but we cannot take any kind of action because I don’t have proof … the Taliban leadership in Kabul is trying not to create problems for Salafi ulema and elders in Kunar”.</p> + +<p>Some other officials were more explicit in their criticism. As one police officer commented, “The ideologies of Salafi and Daesh are the same, then why they shouldn’t support Daesh?”, implying that the entire Salafi community was a security threat. This officer advocated the closure of all Salafi madrasas and schools and criticised what he viewed as the Emirate’s soft approach, dictated by the fear of driving more Salafis into the arms of IS-K.</p> + +<p>Indeed, surrendering IS-K members did warn the Taliban to avoid antagonising the Salafi community, on the grounds that doing so would drive members towards IS-K. Despite this, outside Kunar, Taliban officials continued closing Salafi mosques and madrasas and detaining Salafis, affecting the entire Salafi community. At the end of 2022, Salafi sources alleged that the Taliban had decided to take over Salafi madrasas in southeastern Afghanistan (that is, installing Hanafi principals to run them and replacing many teachers and professors); in universities, teachers accused of being Salafis were dismissed. Taliban and IS-K sources both confirmed these actions. In December 2022, according to Salafi sources, the Taliban took partial control of a madrasa in the Shuhada district of Badakhshan, and in early February 2023, a large-scale Taliban crackdown in Badakhshan led to raids on three local Salafi madrasas and bans on Friday prayers in 10 mosques.</p> + +<p>The quantitative and qualitative growth of the Taliban’s GDI was inevitably going to be instrumental in the implementation of the new directives and in making repression more selective. From the start, rather than investing in protecting every possible target from IS-K attacks, the Taliban opted to focus on infiltrating IS-K cells in and around the cities. Given the limited resources available (the entire annual 2022/23 state budget being just above $2.63 billion, or 48% of what it had been in 2020), this appears to have been a sound approach. As a result, a major focus of the Taliban’s effort throughout 2022 was the expansion and consolidation of the GDI’s network of informers throughout the IS-K-affected area. During 2022–23, the Taliban were able to carry out multiple successful raids on IS-K cells, mostly in Kabul, but also in other cities. Dr Bashir was credited with quickly setting up a vast network of informers and spies in the villages and in Jalalabad, which led to the destruction of numerous IS-K cells. The impact appears to have been obvious, as attacks stopped, although other techniques, such as local negotiations and the targeting of supporting networks, were also used (see below). On social media, IS-K repeatedly warned its members about the Taliban infiltrating its ranks, implicitly acknowledging its difficulties.</p> + +<p>However, there was some obvious evidence of the GDI’s networks being slow to reach areas where IS-K had not originally been expected to operate. One example is a rocket attack from Hayratan into Uzbekistan on 5 July 2022. This was carried out by three Nangarhari members of IS-K, who were able to hide in a safe house in Mazar-i Sharif for seven months. These outsiders should have attracted the attention of the GDI; the fact that they did not highlights how Taliban intelligence gathering in mid-2022 was still weak in this area.</p> + +<p>Another necessary tool for a full transition towards selective repression is the establishment of a functional system of the rule of law. When the Taliban authorities claimed to “have proof” of mosques and madrasas supporting IS-K, including confessions from surrendering IS-K members, such allegations were disputed by Salafi advocates. The Taliban disregarded the advocates’ complaints: “There were some complaints from some Salafi ulema regarding the banning of their madrasas and mosques, but we don’t care”, said one source. In reality, the standards of proof were quite low. A source in the Kunar GDI implicitly acknowledged this: “In Kunar province we have warned Salafi followers that if the Islamic Emirate had a small doubt about any madrasa or mosque spreading propaganda about Daesh, we would close it and will inflict a heavy punishment on the madrasa’s principal or on the mosque’s imam”.</p> + +<p>The low standards of proof predictably resulted in the crackdown continuing on and off, even if not as dramatically as before. At least, the excesses of the Nangarhar death squads of October and November 2021 were not repeated on a comparable scale in 2022.</p> + +<h4 id="choking-off-tactics">Choking-Off Tactics</h4> + +<p>In addition to repression, another key approach taken by the Taliban to countering IS-K in recent years has been choking-off tactics. Typical examples of such tactics include cutting off an insurgency’s supply lines, or the financial flows supporting it, or its access to the population. The Taliban should have been familiar with this: one of the major debates between Kabul and Washington in 2006–21 was over the US’ inability or unwillingness to force Pakistan to cut the supply lines of the Taliban. That failure, many argued, made the war unwinnable.</p> + +<p>While it would have made sense for the Taliban to destroy IS-K’s bases in the far east of Afghanistan in order to disrupt the group’s ability to maintain its influence in eastern Afghanistan, they had limited manpower available as they were taking over the Afghan state in the summer of 2021, with just some 70,000 men in their mobile units as of September 2021. The Taliban’s Emirate had to concentrate thousands of its best troops in Panjshir from early September 2021, where it faced the resistance of local militias and remnants of the previous regime’s armed forces, gathered into the first new armed opposition group to rise after the regime change, the National Resistance Forces. Thousands more troops were busy securing the cities and sealing the border with Tajikistan. The scarcity of manpower in this period is highlighted by the fact that in the months following the takeover, there was only a very thin layer of Taliban armed forces present in most rural areas. In the average district, the Taliban were only able to deploy 20 to 30 men, who guarded district-centre facilities and carried out occasional patrols, riding motorbikes on the roads. They were rarely seen in the villages. While a process did begin of Taliban supporters, reserves, sympathisers and relatives of Taliban members joining the Emirate’s armed forces, it took several months to absorb these untrained or poorly trained individuals into the forces. Moreover, plans for the security sector were initially quite modest, as the Emirate’s leadership decided to keep the size of its armed forces relatively small, for several reasons:</p> + +<ul> + <li> + <p>The easy victory obtained by the Taliban in Panjshir in September.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>The fact that IS-K was viewed as a marginal actor due to its low profile (see “How the Taliban Assessed IS-K”, above).</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>The positive attitude shown to the new regime by all neighbouring countries, except for Tajikistan (which was hosting the National Resistance Forces), was making it hard for armed opposition groups to find a safe haven and external support.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>The limited fiscal base of the Emirate.</p> + </li> +</ul> + +<p>Indeed, Taliban sources circulated the news that the new army would be small, with as few as 40,000 men in combat units and another 20,000 in support and administrative roles. The police force was planned to be 40,000–60,000 men, of whom some 5,000 would be in a special force called Badri 313. These plans soon changed, however, and by January 2022 the Emirate had upgraded its plans for the army and police, overseeing a gradual expansion of the army towards a target of at least 150,000 men. It seems likely that the resumption of IS-K activities in the cities and in the east contributed significantly to this decision.</p> + +<p>The Taliban therefore delayed launching any large operation in the east. They seem to have understood that large military sweeps without the ability to hold territory afterwards are pointless, if not counterproductive – possibly as a result of having observed the failure of such tactics when used against themselves before August 2021. By March 2022, the Taliban were finally able to launch their first relatively large operation in Kunar, with the intent of forcing IS-K to fight for its bases. Initially, they seem to have thought that by threatening the few fixed bases IS-K had in the far east, they would force IS-K to stand and fight, and inflict major losses. According to a local Taliban source, before August 2021, IS-K had access to “every district of Kunar” and had “very active military bases and training centres”. But the insurgents avoided contact, leaving their bases behind and pulling deeper and deeper into the upper valleys. A Salafi <em>a’lim</em> (religious scholar) offered a similar assessment for Dangam district, saying that IS-K had controlled about 30% of the territory before the Taliban takeover, but that most IS-K members moved out after August 2021. The GDI expected to need another military operation, even deeper into the valleys, to “finish IS-K off”. By April 2022, however, the Taliban realised that IS-K had given up its last vestiges of territorial control in Kunar without a fight.</p> + +<p>Whether or not this was initially part of their plans, the Taliban considered that they had achieved an important objective: although IS-K tactics made it impossible for the Taliban to eliminate the group, asserting control over territory and population would still allow them to choke off IS-K. A Taliban cadre in Kunar said in April 2022 that IS-K’s opportunities to approach potential recruits had been greatly reduced, as it had been forced to go underground and to downscale operations.</p> + +<p>The Taliban’s pervasive presence on the ground also allowed the GDI to improve its mapping of IS-K’s presence countrywide. By March 2023, for example, the Taliban claimed to fully know where IS-K cells were operating in Kunar. This choking-off tactic therefore also contributed to enabling more selective repression.</p> + +<p>The other main choking-off tactic used by the Taliban against IS-K was financial disruption. <em>Hawala</em> traders were saying in late 2021 and early 2022 that Taliban authorities (the GDI, but also the National Bank) were increasing pressure on them. At that time, the Taliban had not yet worked out how to effectively block <em>hawala</em> traders from transferring money for IS-K (or any other hostile actor), and so relied on intimidation and implementing existing rules for registering transactions – woefully ignored under the previous regime – to achieve impact. Visits from Taliban patrols served as reminders of the danger of cooperating with IS-K. While these tactics could not completely stop the flow of cash for IS-K from Turkey (where the main financial hub of IS-K was located), they do not seem to have been pointless. IS-K sources reported that by September 2022, IS-K could only rely on a very limited number of <em>hawala</em> traders and a few smugglers who were taking cash for IS-K from Pakistan into Afghanistan. Later in the year, financial transfers were complicated further by a Turkish government crackdown on IS-K networks in Turkey. It is not clear whether the Turkish crackdown was the result of intelligence provided by the GDI, or of the Emirate’s “diplomatic” engagement. In any case, as an IS-K source acknowledged, the group’s expansion into the north was insufficiently funded as a result.</p> + +<p>These efforts appear to have had some impact. One IS-K source claimed in May 2022 that earlier financial flow problems had been fixed, but there was evidence to the contrary. Salaries paid to frontline fighters, at $235 per month in 2022, were lower than in 2015–16, when they were reportedly as high as $600. Although the central leadership of IS continued to promise massive funding increases for the future, in 2022, according to one of IS-K’s financial cadres, it cut the IS-K budget to its lowest level ever.</p> + +<h4 id="the-talibans-reconciliation-deals">The Taliban’s Reconciliation Deals</h4> + +<p>As noted above, Dr Bashir was not simply interested in wreaking havoc in IS-K-supporting networks and milieus. Having gained a position of strength through his crackdown, Bashir moved forward with local negotiations with community elders to undermine the rival organisation. The Taliban had themselves been subject to reconciliation efforts to co-opt some of their ranks when they were fighting their “jihad”, although it is not clear what they made of these efforts, which were in any case poorly implemented by the Afghan government of the day. Bashir is now seen by Taliban officials as having been a “very active chief for Nangarhar GDI department” and as having had a “very good connection with villagers and elders in every village and district of Nangarhar province”.</p> + +<p>The Taliban were probably aware of the role played by Salafi elders in the recruitment of IS-K members, or perhaps presumed such a role, based on their own experience as insurgents. Several surrendered IS-K members acknowledged that many Salafi elders in Nangarhar had previously encouraged villagers to join IS-K. IS-K teams had regular meetings with elders, encouraging them to mobilise villagers. There was reportedly a high level of pressure on individual members of IS-K to invite friends, relatives and neighbours into the group. It was standard practice for Salafi village elders supporting IS-K to be trusted to introduce new members without the standard additional vetting. “Joining Daesh at that time was very easy; it only needed one telephone request”. Individual recruits, on the other hand, were still scrutinised much more seriously, according to a former IS-K member who was recruited via social media.</p> + +<p>Dr Bashir relied on an initially small number of Salafi elders willing to cooperate, and on several Hanafi elders who had connections with some IS-K members or lived in areas affected by the IS-K presence. Former IS-K sources confirm the role of the elders in negotiating their surrender. In the words of one, “When we decided to surrender to the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate, again we used the local elders to negotiate and mediate our surrendering with Dr Bashir”. The GDI arranged for the surrendering IS-K members and their community elders to guarantee under oath that they would not rejoin IS-K or in any way oppose the Emirate. The elders agreed to take responsibility and inform the Emirate’s authorities of any violations.</p> + +<p>On the basis of Dr Bashir’s exploratory efforts in 2021, the GDI and other components of the Taliban’s security apparatus established communication with community elders. The village elders were tasked by the Taliban GDI with negotiating the surrender of any Salafi elder with whom they came into contact. The Taliban identified useful contacts among the elders, and the district governor or the chief of police regularly visited them, as often as weekly or fortnightly.</p> + +<p>The official claim is that in 2021–22 some 500 IS-K members (commanders, fighters, recruiters, support elements and sympathisers) from Nangarhar, Kunar and Laghman surrendered as a result of Bashir’s combination of ruthless repression and negotiations with the community elders. This figure is likely to be somewhat inflated. One of the surrendering IS-K member noted that “there were lots of people among those 70 who surrendered who were not Daesh members; I didn’t recognise many of them”. A source in the Taliban’s provincial administration acknowledged that some Salafi elders, anxious to please the new regime, convinced some members of the community to pose as IS-K members and “surrender”. This was discovered later by the GDI but, overall, the elders-focused effort was still rated highly successful. A police source estimated that 60% of those surrendering were IS-K members from eastern Afghanistan and 40% were civilian supporters. Even a source hostile to the Taliban supported a positive assessment of the campaign, acknowledging that in a single village in Sorkhrod, three IS-K members surrendered to the Taliban. Various ex-IS-K interviewees confirmed having surrendered as part of large groups of IS-K members.</p> + +<p>The majority surrendered because of agreements between the GDI and community elders, but some surrendered directly to the GDI, after Bashir managed to reach out to them in the districts and convince them that surrendering was the best option for them. Bashir’s argument to these IS-K members was that it was not in the Salafi community’s interest to have another war, which would be fought ruthlessly by the Taliban, including in their villages.</p> + +<p>With a much reduced IS-K ability to threaten waverers, due to the group’s weakness on the ground, the path was clear for the Taliban to expand their tactics of negotiating deals with community elders to Kunar province. Indeed, to some extent during 2022 the stream of surrendering IS-K members, which had started in Nangarhar in autumn 2021, spread to Kunar. Here too, the Taliban sought the cooperation of the community elders to convince IS-K members to lay down arms. Some Salafi ulema were also involved. Although the surrenders were fewer than in the neighbouring province, the “tens of Daesh members” who surrendered to the Taliban as a result of the mediation of the elders represented a warning to IS-K. The formula adopted was the same as in Nangarhar, with surrendering members taking an oath never to rejoin IS-K and the elders guaranteeing for them. As in Nangarhar, some IS-K members in Kunar reached out directly to the GDI to negotiate their surrender.</p> + +<p>At the same time, the Taliban continued their local negotiations with elders in Nangarhar. The flow of surrenders therefore continued in 2022. The last group to surrender in 2022 was composed of some 70 members from Nangarhar, who defected in the autumn. As of January 2023, the Taliban believed that 90% of the IS-K structure in Nangarhar had been wiped out; the Taliban were aware of the existence of some IS-K cells, but deemed them too weak to launch attacks. It is difficult to say whether the Taliban’s estimate was correct, but undoubtedly IS-K had taken a big hit in Nangarhar.</p> + +<p>Those who laid down weapons sometimes reported being treated decently by the Taliban; others reported not being treated very well, with Taliban and pro-Taliban villagers looking down on them. Still, they appreciated that they could live with their families, even if most of them had had to relocate to avoid IS-K retaliation. There were complaints about being required to report to the police station every week or two, and not being allowed to move around without permission. Surrendered IS-K members also complained that the Taliban were not implementing their side of the deal – specifically, giving financial support to those who had surrendered. One of those interviewed noted that this would make it hard for the Taliban to convince more to surrender. Another complaint was that those who stayed in the districts did not feel safe from IS-K.</p> + +<p>The fact that madrasas and some mosques were still closed also upset the reconciled IS-K members, in part because the surrender agreements included a clause about reopening them. Reportedly, the surrendering IS-K members had been promised government jobs, the freedom to live anywhere in the country and the receipt of cash payments for six months. In practice, no cash was paid (although some food and some benefits in kind such as blankets were provided), and the surrendering men were only allowed to choose to live in their own community or in the district centre. Some surrendered IS-K members hinted that the reason why surrenders have slowed down was to be found in the violation or non-implementation of these agreements.</p> + +<h4 id="elite-bargaining-with-the-salafi-ulema">Elite Bargaining with the Salafi Ulema</h4> + +<p>In 2020–21, the Taliban did not show much faith in the opportunities offered by intra-Afghan talks, nor were their counterparts in Kabul able to pursue those talks with any degree of effectiveness. Instead, the Taliban sought to co-opt local and regional elites associated with the government of the Islamic Republic. It is probably in a similar spirit and informed by this experience that the Taliban approached the prospect of negotiations for resolving the conflict with IS-K. The Taliban were well aware of the links between IS-K and much of the Salafi clergy. Support from Salafi communities in the east and northeast had proved essential for IS-K to be able to put down roots there. Many Salafi preachers were recruiting for IS-K in this period, as sources within the community admit, and Salafi madrasas and schools in Kabul were sending numerous recruits to IS-K. Much of the Salafi youth joined during this phase. For the Taliban, driving a wedge between IS-K and the Salafi community, from which the former draws most of its support base, must have seemed an attractive opportunity.</p> + +<p>A group of Salafi ulema had already sought an understanding with the Taliban in 2020, as IS-K was losing ground quite fast in the east. A delegation of senior Salafi ulema, led by one of the most senior figures, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, met the Taliban’s emir, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and other senior Taliban in 2020, offering support to the Taliban in exchange for the cessation of violence and reprisals against civilians. The Emirate’s authorities again welcomed delegations of Salafi ulema in Kabul in 2021, reconfirming the agreement with the Salafi ulema and reissuing orders that the Salafis should not be targeted. After that, attacks and harassment of the Salafis reduced, even if some Taliban commanders continued behaving with hostility towards Salafis.</p> + +<p>However, the terms of the agreement were that the Taliban would not allow the Salafi preachers to proselytise, and the madrasas that had been shut on grounds that they had been recruiting for IS-K remained closed. Only the mosques were reopened. Moreover, some senior clerics, accused of links to IS-K, remained in prison: Sheikh Bilal Irfan; Sheikh Qari Muzamil; Sheikh Sardar Wali; Sheikh Jawid; and Delawar Mansur. The Salafi ulema interpreted the closure of the madrasas as temporary and expected that after some time the community could return to its quietist stance, which had in the past (before 2015) been the predominant position among Afghan Salafis.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, even after the second agreement in 2021 many “hot-headed” young members of the community stayed with IS-K. One of the Salafi ulema pledging allegiance to the Emirate admitted in a private interview that the Salafi clerics remain opposed to Hanafi Islam, but that they did not think IS-K stood a chance against the Taliban, and that it was not in the interest of the community to fight. These clerics, however, did not have control over the youth who were still with IS-K.</p> + +<p>On the other side, among the Taliban and the Hanafi ulema, there were voices of moderation, especially among the ulema, who were even willing to tolerate Salafi proselytising – generously funded from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan – on the grounds that otherwise the Salafis would continue being driven towards IS-K. An imam in Jalalabad expressed what might be defined as the midway solution preferred by the Taliban’s leadership, as discussed above: avoid identifying all Salafis as linked to IS-K; leave the Salafis alone; but ban them from proselytising. His words reflected angst about the seemingly unstoppable spread of Salafism: “I am living among Salafi scholars and followers; they are becoming bigger and bigger every day, they have very good financial sources in Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries … to expand their activities”.</p> + +<p>But the 2021 agreement was also opposed by many among the Taliban and the Hanafi ulema. There are many hardliners. Former Kunar governor Turabi embodied the hardline stance: repression without local reconciliation efforts. Although this approach was not effective and was opposed in Kabul, within the GDI’s ranks, Turabi still had supporters in early 2023, who argued for a crackdown on supporting networks and milieus on the grounds that the safe haven they offered was essential for IS-K operations.</p> + +<p>A common view among Hanafi ulema is that while there are quietist Salafis in Afghanistan who have not embraced the militant Salafism of IS-K, the popularity of IS-K among Salafis is not only due to a defensive reaction on the part of the community. They believe that jihadist Salafism has been spreading through the community. Because of this, many Hanafi ulema have been sceptical about the decision of a number of high-profile Salafi clerics to seek an understanding with the Taliban, believing it to be only a tactical decision to buy time.</p> + +<p>As a result of polarised views within the Taliban and among the Hanafi ulema, the policies of the Emirate concerning the Salafis have continued to fluctuate and vary from province to province, as discussed above. As a result, relations with the Salafi community have remained tense. Kunar received special treatment, with the Taliban’s leadership making clear that especially in Kunar, the GDI should only act against Salafi madrasas and mosques in the presence of solid evidence. The new policy of “working hard to give respect and value to our Salafi brothers and trying our best to finish the dispute between Taliban and Salafi” was introduced after Turabi’s dismissal, according to a source in the provincial administration. The decision was made at the top: “Taliban local leaderships have been told by our leaders in Kabul to keep a good behaviour with Salafi members in Kunar”. There was an at least partial acknowledgement that “one of the reasons why Daesh in Afghanistan became active and somewhat powerful is that some Taliban carried out aggressive acts against the Salafis in Kunar and Nangarhar”. Former IS-K members confirmed that negotiations with Salafi elders and the ulema led to the reopening in 2022 of all mosques and of the Salafi madrasa, except two, which stayed closed due to their connection to IS-K.</p> + +<p>Despite this “special treatment”, a Salafi <em>a’lim</em> estimated in April 2023 that the community in Kunar was split between those who have functional relations with the Taliban and those who are hostile. One Salafi elder estimated that in his district of Dangam, 30% of the Salafi community was on friendly terms with the Taliban and the remaining 70% had tensions. It did not help that the Salafis remained marginalised in Kunar even in early 2023, as all the provincial officials were Hanafi, with only a few rank-and-file Taliban from the Salafi community. The Taliban have regular meetings with the district <em>shura</em> (council) and occasional meetings with the village <em>shuras</em>, but no Salafis were included in the district <em>shura</em> or in at least some of the village <em>shuras</em>. Hence, a Salafi elder complained that “the Taliban don’t want to hear too many complaints from the Salafis, nor their views”. Clearly, while attempting to defuse tension, the Taliban seemed to have no intention of moving towards an elite bargain.</p> + +<p>Even Taliban sources acknowledge that friction between Salafis and Hanafis has persisted. For example, throughout 2022–23, the Taliban were insisting that all imams wish a long life to the Taliban’s amir (or “head of state”), Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, during Friday prayers; the Salafi ulema in Kunar refused to comply. This refusal did not lead to a new crackdown, but it shows that the Salafi ulema were not entirely committed to supporting the Emirate, despite their pledge. The Taliban had offered them a safety guarantee as subjects of the Emirate, but it appeared that the Salafis wanted an elite bargain, that is, at least a share of power and influence. As a result, the Taliban’s engagement with the Salafi ulema went cold towards the end of 2022. After two or three meetings during 2021–22, meetings stopped, and Taliban officials took the view that the Salafi ulema were not willing to fully implement their part of the deal and that several of them were still supporting IS-K.</p> + +<p>There appears to have been no talk at any stage of incorporating significant numbers of Salafi clerics into the ulema councils at the provincial and national levels, which would have been a major step towards an elite bargain with Salafi elites.</p> + +<h3 id="iv-is-ks-response-to-the-talibans-tactics">IV. IS-K’s Response to the Taliban’s Tactics</h3> + +<p>While the Taliban’s efforts posed major challenges to IS-K, not all the techniques discussed above were threatening or, indeed, were perceived as such. IS-K does not appear to have been concerned about indiscriminate repression against its supporting milieus, and its only apparent reaction was intensifying efforts to present itself as the defender of the Salafi community. Its focus was instead on responding to the Taliban’s choking-off effort, especially their campaign to take full control of territory and population.</p> + +<h4 id="the-response-to-choking-off-tactics">The Response to Choking-Off Tactics</h4> + +<p>Even if the Taliban were not, immediately after their takeover, in a position to organise a major military campaign in the far east of Afghanistan (Kunar and Nuristan), IS-K clearly understood the potential threat this would represent. By the time the Taliban took over in August 2021, IS-K had long opted out of a direct confrontation with them, after it had emerged in 2019–20 that its forces could not stand up to the Taliban on an open battlefield. This perception of a major threat from a Taliban assault on IS-K bases in the far east only increased after August 2021, given that the Taliban were at that point no longer busy fighting the forces of the previous regime. IS-K soon relinquished the residual territorial control it still had (see the discussion of choking-off tactics above). The group appears to have hoped to delay the expected Taliban onslaught in the east, or to make it unsustainable by waging a guerrilla war against the Taliban forces deployed there, forcing them to divert forces – while at the same time mitigating the impact of choke-off tactics by reducing the number of non-local members (who were harder to hide and more difficult to support) and creating an extensive underground network.</p> + +<p><strong>Delay and Diversion</strong></p> + +<p>While seeking to retain control over parts of Kunar and Nuristan, IS-K largely switched to asymmetric tactics, such as intensified urban terrorism, hit-and- run raids, ambushes and mines. These efforts produced few results initially, and IS-K’s leaders (the leader of IS-K and the military council) had to keep thinking of new strategies. A plan for sending cells to cities where IS-K was not yet active, such as Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-i Sharif, was hatched in spring 2021 – that is, before the Taliban took power – although it was not fully implemented until August 2021.</p> + +<p>Essentially, the IS-K leadership decided to keep the Taliban busy by going on the offensive in the cities, calculating that by risking a few tens of cells it could force the Taliban to commit tens of thousands to guarding the cities. The campaign started somewhat slowly, due to the limited capabilities of existing IS-K underground networks in Kabul and Jalalabad.</p> + +<p>During the last five months of 2021, IS-K was able to increase the number of its large terrorist attacks in Kabul to five, from two in the first half of 2021. Urban guerrilla actions also continued in Jalalabad after a short lull, opening up with a series of six bomb attacks in September, followed by some months of urban guerrilla warfare against members of the Taliban. Taliban sources described the situation in Jalalabad at that time as “daily IS-K attacks”.</p> + +<p>At the same time, during the chaotic power transition of summer 2021, IS-K was able to transfer multiple cells to the cities, which reinforced its presence in Kabul and Jalalabad but also allowed it to expand its terrorist campaign to cities previously unaffected by this campaign. Cells were thus established in Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i Sharif, Charikar, Kunduz, Faizabad and Gulbahar. Among the cells were recruiting teams which targeted, in particular, university campuses. As a result, while IS-K was able to intensify its campaign of terrorist attacks in the cities, it was also hoping that the new urban underground structure would become self-sustainable. An IS-K source acknowledged that the group exploited the chaotic period of the Taliban’s takeover to send more of its cells into the cities. He explained that “because different groups of Taliban entered Jalalabad city and other cities of Afghanistan from the mountains and the districts, it was very difficult for the Taliban … to distinguish between Daesh and Taliban members there”.</p> + +<p>An IS-K source estimated in early 2022 that the Kabul city contingent, following years of decline, had climbed back up to 300 members, in two separate structures – one aimed at preparing and carrying out attacks, and the other at recruiting and propaganda operations. There seemed to be a real opportunity for catching the new regime off guard, with the Taliban still surprised to find themselves in power and dealing with multiple crises in their efforts to keep the Afghan state afloat. While the Taliban were known to be more than a match for IS-K in a conventional fight, IS-K hoped that the Taliban’s lack of experience in counterterrorism would allow several hundred terrorists to cause havoc in the cities, as even Taliban officials confirmed to the International Crisis Group that this was the case.</p> + +<p>Aside from its intensity, in terms of target selection the campaign of terrorist attacks in Kabul was a continuation of IS-K’s earlier campaign against the previous government. The targets of the new phase of the campaign were also religious minorities, such as the Sikhs and, most of all, the Shia community. Aside from forcing the Taliban to divert forces away from the east, the primary intent seems to have been to create chaos in the cities, turning the sizeable Shia community against the Taliban (for their failure to protect it) and exposing the incompetence of the new regime, especially in urban security. In spring 2022, the High Council of IS-K decided, in the context of some fine-tuning of its strategic plan, to further reinforce the focus on terrorism in the main cities, targeting the Shia community via a wide selection of very soft targets, such as schools and mosques. Protecting so many potential targets would have required the Taliban to commit significant human resources, to the detriment of the wider counter-IS effort.</p> + +<p>Operationally, IS-K’s campaign in 2022 produced some visible results. According to a respondent, IS-K’s “research and inquiry” department, which undertakes analysis for the leadership, produced in June 2022 an internal report indicating that in the spring of 2022, IS-K had achieved the highest number of “highlight” (that is, headline-making) attacks and military activities in three years. Impartial data collection shows that the pace of bomb attacks peaked above 10 per month in April–July 2022, but started declining in the latter part of that year, to between three and six per month (see Figure 1). This might have been due to increasingly effective Taliban counterterrorism. However, it is also likely that relocation from the far east had largely been completed, and that IS-K downscaled terrorist attacks in Kabul to a more sustainable level.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Rf6GAx2.png" alt="image01" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 1: IS-K Activity and Taliban Counterterrorism Operations, 2022–23.</strong> Source: <a href="https://www.afghanwitness.org/reports/taliban-continue-raids-against-iskp-in-may%2C-claim-killing-of-deputy-governor-in-kabul">Afghan Witness, “Taliban Continue Raids Against ISKP in May, Claim Killing of Deputy Governor in Kabul”, 1 June 2023</a>. In the figure, “Arrests” and “Clashes/Raid” refer to Taliban operations against IS-K. Reproduced with permission.</em></p> + +<p><strong>Mitigation</strong></p> + +<p>To lessen the need for supplies inside Afghanistan and also being increasingly unable to protect non-Afghan members, in late 2021 and early 2022, IS-K moved more of its Pakistani members across the border. Taliban sources too noted the disappearance of not only Pakistanis but also Central Asians, Chechens and other non-Afghans from the east, and assumed they too had crossed the border.</p> + +<p>The process of evacuating the bases in the east took eight months; even for some time after this a substantial number of IS-K members, especially leadership and administrative cadres, were hiding in caves and other secret locations, while their relocation was being arranged. The permanent bases were replaced during 2022 by an underground infrastructure, not only in Kunar but also in parts of Nangarhar, with secret cells established in Achin, Naziyan, Lal Pur, Pachir wa Agam, Bati Kot, Mohmand Dara and Jalalabad city. Even as the Taliban kept destroying its cells in Jalalabad, IS-K was able to maintain a presence there. Local elders confirmed the disappearance of obvious signs of IS-K presence, but believed that the group maintained secret cells. In January 2023, a source in the Taliban’s administration stated that IS-K’s presence in Nangarhar consisted of some IS-K cells in Jalalabad and one to two cells each in some districts, such as Achin and Naziyan. As of March 2023, the police estimated that there were 16 IS-K cells in Jalalabad, based on the confessions of detainees, but the cells operated independently and tracking them down was difficult.</p> + +<p>Parallel to the move underground, IS-K also sought to adopt a mobile infrastructure to support the small, dispersed cells, a process that continued throughout 2022. A year after the spring 2022 strategic shift was decided, one IS-K source described as an accomplished fact a new, leaner and more mobile infrastructure that had replaced the old fixed bases:</p> + +<blockquote> + <p>Daesh has training centres and lots of secret cells and secret military bases in Kunar province, but they are changing their locations all the time. Daesh is on the move – its training centre, military bases [and] secret cells are all moving and changing every three or four months. When a member of Daesh is arrested by the Taliban or surrenders, Daesh immediately finds out where these guys were trained, which posts or secret cells they were assigned to, then it changes the locations.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Taliban sources confirmed that IS-K was moving people to the northeast and north and even claimed that the collapse of IS-K activities in Nangarhar was in part due to IS-K moving out.</p> + +<p>While IS-K implemented these mitigating actions quickly, it remains the case that they were not enough to prevent the group’s operations from being constrained. IS-K’s messaging to its members did not mention the coming downgrade of the east, for good reasons. It appears to have been a difficult decision to take, given that a large majority of the group’s Afghan members were from the east and had families there. As of early 2022, IS-K sources were still adamant that they would soon go on the offensive, that their bases in the east were safe and that they had enough manpower to defeat the Taliban in the east. The rationale for having IS-K’s main bases in eastern Afghanistan (Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan) was still being promulgated by IS-K sources at least until mid-2022: “there are many Salafi people and madrasas in these provinces and most of the followers of Salafism are supporting IS-K”. It took until 2023 for IS-K sources to begin showing awareness and acceptance of the fact that IS-K had given up any ambition to hold territory, at least in the short and medium term.</p> + +<p>The constraints that the transition placed on IS-K’s operations are evident when we look at its guerrilla operations in the east. While the transition was ongoing, IS-K, remarkably, sought to keep waging a guerrilla war in eastern Afghanistan. The guerrilla campaign was always limited in scope, affecting only the provinces of Kunar and, to a lesser extent, Nangarhar. Guerrilla activities intensified from late summer 2021, especially in Ghaziabad, Naray and Shegal. Though these mostly consisted of small hit-and-run attacks on Taliban posts and small ambushes, they were beginning to annoy the Taliban. In spring 2022, the High Council of IS-K, while deciding to intensify the terrorist campaign in the cities, also confirmed the decision to continuing the guerrilla war against the Taliban, where possible. However, the new structure left behind in the east proved unable or unwilling to support a steady insurgency there. IS-K guerrilla attacks in Nangarhar remained especially rare. One of the last few recorded attacks was in February 2022, an ambush in Achin which killed two members of the Taliban.</p> + +<p>In Kunar, the picture was similar. In one of the worst incidents, a convoy was ambushed in Shegal and “several Taliban fighters were martyred”. In Dangam in Kunar, some lingering IS-K presence continued in the forested area, without much military activity. Those remaining were local members, reportedly being kept in reserve and perhaps supporting the planning of attacks elsewhere. Most IS-K members had reportedly moved to northeastern and northern Afghanistan (see below). This is likely to have affected the pace of guerrilla operations in the east, not only because of lower numbers, but also because to local members the option of lying low and hiding was more likely to seem viable than it would to their foreign and out-of-area comrades. As the presence of non-local fighters dried out, the level of guerrilla activity declined further. An independent assessment found that IS-K was able to sustain the number of guerrilla attacks at between five and 10 per month during the first half of 2022. The numbers, however, collapsed to between two and five in the second half of the year (see Figure 1, where guerrilla attacks are listed under the category “Gun”).</p> + +<p>IS-K also tried to adapt in response to the Taliban’s financial disruption operations. Confronted with the news that IS-K networks in Turkey had taken a major hit, IS-K sources indicated that the organisation coped successfully, reactivating its old financial hub in the UAE, where the abundance of Afghan <em>hawala</em> traders would make it easier to find complicit ones. The source had to acknowledge that there was a bottleneck at the receiving end, in Afghanistan, as <em>hawala</em> traders were wary of getting caught. He tried hard to present an optimistic picture, noting that other ways of transferring money, through complicit businesses based in Turkey and through flights between Istanbul and Kabul, with the help of some personnel at Kabul’s airport, were being tested. One of his colleagues also suggested that the financial strangulation of IS-K was lessening as of December 2022–January 2023.</p> + +<h4 id="the-response-to-the-reconciliation-and-reintegration-deals">The Response to the Reconciliation and Reintegration Deals</h4> + +<p>The other main concern for IS-K appears to have been about countering the Taliban’s local reconciliation and reintegration efforts, which had the support of some Salafi elders in the villages (see discussion above). The group appears to have seen this as the biggest medium-term threat. IS-K started in 2021–22 to bring pressure on the elders not to facilitate negotiations between IS-K members and the Taliban. One surrendering member heard from villagers that “Daesh is trying a lot to undermine this process. Several elders who were secretly facilitating the negotiations and connecting IS-K members with the Taliban for their surrender have been threatened”.</p> + +<p>Others who surrendered confirmed the same, adding that threats consisted of death threats and threats to burn down the homes of anybody making deals. One of the surrendered members claimed he and two fellow former comrades in arms received threats from IS-K; the group, he said, threatened to “set fire to my house and throw me into the blaze”. Two elders of his village, who had helped the Taliban, he said, were also threatened, and as a result stopped being involved in negotiating surrenders. One even reported that nine surrendered IS-K members ended up rejoining IS-K in Nangarhar, although it is not clear whether this was because of the threats or because of the poor Taliban implementation of the deals. IS-K also increased counter-intelligence efforts among its own ranks. These countermeasures were deemed to be effective by a number of former IS-K members, who believed that surrenders were diminishing or even ceasing. This suggests that IS-K feared the reconciliation/reintegration plans much more than it did indiscriminate repression.</p> + +<h4 id="the-response-to-the-talibans-tentative-elite-bargaining">The Response to the Taliban’s Tentative Elite Bargaining</h4> + +<p>Because of the lack of Taliban success in negotiating with the Salafi ulema, IS-K may not have considered a response to their negotiations with the Salafi ulema a priority – although it is likely that it brought pressure to bear on the Salafi ulema to stay away from the Taliban. IS-K’s short campaign of attacks on pro-Taliban clerics in the summer of 2022 might also have been intended to provoke Taliban retaliation against Salafi clerics and spoil the Taliban’s discussions with them. The killing of Rahman Ansari in Herat in September 2022 might have been a warning as well, as Ansari was a Salafi preacher who had pledged loyalty to the Taliban. IS-K did not claim the killing. The campaign was abandoned in autumn, probably as it was becoming clear that IS-K did not need to be concerned about Taliban negotiations with the Salafi ulema.</p> + +<h4 id="is-k-counterattacks">IS-K Counterattacks</h4> + +<p>While IS-K sought to counter Taliban tactics or at least to limit the damage, its leadership also decided to try re-seizing the long-lost initiative by striking the Taliban where it felt they were more vulnerable. The urban terrorism campaign, discussed above, was more of a diversion than a counter-offensive. Instead, IS-K appears to have placed its hopes for turning around the situation in its expansion in the north. Plans to expand recruitment in the north started in mid-2020 (after an earlier aborted effort in 2017–18). Small numbers of Afghan Pashtuns and even Pakistanis were also sent north. After 2021, these efforts were strengthened, and even moving the IS-K headquarters there in the future was considered.</p> + +<p>In mid-2022, the IS-K leadership was reportedly still in Kunar, but the new phase of the transfer to the north had been initiated a few months earlier. The movement of people and assets to the north and northeast continued, as both a Taliban police officer and a local elder confirmed. IS-K sources talked up the migration with the claim that it was about taking jihad to Central Asia. IS-K sources spoke about training centres being established in Badakhshan, Kunduz and Jawzjan, with plans to open one in Balkh. As IS-K also dramatically expanded its social media activities, it began releasing significant quantities of propaganda, such as statements and pamphlets in Uzbekistani, Tajikistani and Uyghur, in order to support its claims of imminent expansion into Central Asia.</p> + +<p>IS-K seems to have had expectations of rapid expansion into Faryab and the northwest in spring 2022, exploiting intra-Taliban friction. More generally, it is clear that one of the main reasons for the shift in focus northwards was the hope for major defections from the ranks of the Taliban there. That did not happen on any significant scale. When asked for details, an IS-K source could only provide modest defection figures for the entire August 2021 to mid-2022 period: “a few commanders in the north”, with some more in talks as of mid-2022.</p> + +<p>Another aspect of IS-K’s “counter-offensive” was to make up for the group’s limited achievements with media-focused symbolic attacks, such as rocket attacks from Afghan territory on Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which caused no damage but won high-profile exposure in the media. An important part of IS-K’s strategy was integrating its military and propaganda campaigns. Graphic details of the terrorist campaign were used by IS-K social media propaganda to project an image of strength and power that was out of all proportion with the reality. Overall, the leadership of IS-K succeeded fairly well in hiding the extent of its difficulties. The regional and world media, as well as policymakers, continued to portray it as a highly threatening organisation, even though its military achievements were almost negligible.</p> + +<p>Although it is difficult to measure how IS-K members and sympathisers reacted to this propaganda, it is clear that one of the intents was to shore up the morale of increasingly dispersed members and convince them that the jihad was succeeding. IS-K tried to diminish the Taliban’s achievements and to stimulate feelings of revenge, for example by claiming that the Taliban had deliberately killed family members of IS-K members during their raids on city cells.</p> + +<p>Initially the Taliban were taken aback by the dramatically expanded output of IS-K’s rather slick propaganda. The GDI responded by targeting IS-K activism on social media, exploiting the recruitment efforts of IS-K to infiltrate its own agents, and succeeding in capturing some online activists. It also managed to seize control of some accounts linked to IS-K, and to develop more effective counter-propaganda. A key theme of Taliban propaganda, distributed through the regime’s media as well as on social media, was to portray IS-K as heretics. A pro-Taliban <em>a’lim</em> argued that IS-K members “should be treated like <em>khawarij</em> [heretics] and their Sharia sentences should be hanging or beheading”. Another <em>a’lim</em> argued that IS-K members “are all <em>khawarij</em>” and that the doctrine is clear that under Islamic law, the punishment for this is death. Overall, however, at the end of 2022 online propaganda was the only domain in which IS-K dominated.</p> + +<h4 id="the-overall-impact-on-is-k-in-202122">The Overall Impact on IS-K in 2021–22</h4> + +<p>Although IS-K propaganda continually claimed that its numbers were rising, when asked for details, sources provided numbers that in fact showed that the group’s size had remained fairly stable in 2021–22, at just under 8,000 men in total. Most of these in June 2022 were already claimed to be in the north/northeast, according to a source who was himself about to be transferred there from the east.</p> + +<p>IS-K sources and propaganda also claimed that recruitment was strong in 2022. When challenged for figures, two IS-K sources provided roughly consistent figures: total new recruitment into IS-K was estimated at 150–200 per month in mid-2022. The main sources of recruits were still identified as “Salafi madrasas, schools, mosques [and] scholars”. As noted elsewhere, IS-K recruitment in universities can be estimated in the low hundreds per year. Overall, these figures seem relatively modest, considering that IS-K was taking losses and suffering defections, and they are consistent with a substantial stagnation in IS-K’s strength during this period.</p> + +<p>In sum, IS-K was able to preserve its manpower and appears to have tailored the level and character of its activities to its ability to recruit and, presumably, spend. During this period, however, the Taliban were rapidly expanding their manpower. IS-K’s transition to a fully underground structure had been fairly smooth, with diversions proving rather successful in distracting the Taliban for some months. It is, however, clear that the group had not been able to seize back the initiative and that its financial difficulties seemed to be worsening.</p> + +<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3> + +<p>How did the Taliban structure their post-August 2021 mix of tactics for countering IS-K? And how successful were these in fighting the group? Selective violence quickly became the default choice of Taliban policymakers. Identifying the boundaries between extremists, supporting milieus and “quietists” was, however, always contentious. It should also be noted that the Taliban appear to have purposely used bursts of indiscriminate violence to warn hostile populations of what an all-out war with the Emirate would mean for them, and to intimidate them into submission. An aspect of the Taliban’s counter-IS effort that emerges clearly from this paper is that repression, even indiscriminate repression, and reconciliation deals were seen as functional to each other: the stick and the carrot. The new state had to show that it meant business, and that it was able to impose intolerable suffering on the Salafi community if it refused to collaborate.</p> + +<p>IS-K’s leadership appears to have underestimated the ability of the Taliban to adapt quickly. Taliban intelligence, despite some obvious limitations, was able to quickly establish a wide and thick network of informers. As insurgents, the Taliban had had a well-developed intelligence network, and they adapted this; they also seem to have prioritised investment in their intelligence agency. Given IS’s reputation for ruthlessness, it was easy for them to obtain the cooperation of bystanders. At the national leadership level, there seems to have been an understanding of the risk of getting trapped in a cycle of violence, and there were interventions to contain the excesses of provincial officials, especially as the new security apparatus consolidated. The Taliban showed their ability to adapt by developing the sophisticated means to make selective repression viable, for example through setting up social media infiltration teams. Still, when selective repression proved difficult to implement because of insufficient intelligence, local Taliban officials usually had no qualms about reverting to indiscriminate violence, even if the scale never approached the main wave of violence of autumn 2021. It is noteworthy in this regard that the Taliban failed to apply the rule of law to counter-IS efforts. The system remained prone to abuse even from the standpoint of Islamic law, and avoiding excesses was always dependent on interventions from the higher leadership levels.</p> + +<p>The Taliban also tentatively began working at local reconciliation deals with Salafi communities, but the effort was weakly supported by Kabul and, as of early 2023, it was poorly followed up. National-level talks with the Salafi ulema helped the Taliban shift away from indiscriminate violence, but did not lead to any progress towards an elite bargain. The Taliban were offering peace to the Salafis as subjects of the Emirate, but the Salafi ulema were seeking inclusion.</p> + +<p>Where the Taliban were most effective was with choking-off tactics, constraining the ability of IS-K to recruit, resupply and keep money coming in. They waited until they had sufficient manpower available before mounting large-scale military sweeps, to be able to hold the ground afterwards. If they had been engaging in ineffective sweeps, as the previous regime had, they would have alienated the population for no gain.</p> + +<p>A pertinent question is how much of the Taliban’s counter-IS effort has derived from their previous experience as insurgents. While none of the sources directly commented on this point, it seems likely that their reluctance to engage in big military sweeps might derive from having experienced the ineffectiveness of such tactics when they were on the receiving end of them before August 2021. Similarly, having had to recruit new insurgents for 20 years, the Taliban seem well aware of the greater difficulties that an insurgent organisation faces when it lacks territorial control. The Taliban furthermore always argued that the indiscriminate revenge-taking and repression practised by Afghan and US security forces in 2001–04 drove many into their ranks, enabling them to start their insurgency. In the current case, however, they have struggled to implement a coherent policy of selective repression, showing perhaps that learning lessons could well be disrupted by the emotional legacy of a long war. Another example of how hatred for the enemy gets in the way of rational policymaking is the Taliban’s failure to follow up on their good start on reconciliation and reintegration.</p> + +<p>IS-K undoubtedly proved a resilient organisation after August 2021. Despite facing morale and financial issues, it focused on an urban strategy while trying to strengthen its positions in northern Afghanistan. Militarily speaking, it did not mount a serious threat to the Taliban. The leadership opted to spare its fighters, soon even giving up early attempts to wage a guerrilla war in the east. IS-K tried instead to keep the Taliban busy guarding the cities against a massive wave of urban terrorism, while at the same time expecting its efforts to establish itself firmly in the north to be bearing fruit in the medium term. Time, however, was not on IS-K’s side, and the group’s financial difficulties only increased during 2022.</p> + +<p>IS-K appeared to be in a corner by the end of 2022 and early 2023, in good part due to Taliban efforts to counter it. The organisation was surviving by keeping a very low profile, but this meant limited recruitment opportunities and, importantly, far too little fundraising inside Afghanistan. The dependence on money coming from abroad was increasingly proving a liability during 2022. Without financial resources, IS-K was not well positioned to exploit the Taliban’s remaining vulnerability: the fact that the Salafi community, while in general acknowledging a reduction of the pressure exercised by the Emirate, still feels oppressed and very pessimistic about its future under the new regime.</p> + +<p>It seems clear that IS-K was very vulnerable to the reconciliation efforts deployed by the Taliban, and that a decisive defeat of the organisation could have been achieved if the Taliban had followed through and implemented their reconciliation packages consistently. Instead, as the IS-K threat appeared to be receding in the second half of 2022 and Taliban self-confidence grew, reconciliation efforts lost steam, despite evidence suggesting that this was the most effective path. It was assumed that defectors would easily reintegrate with the help of the community elders, who, however, received no support from the Emirate. The main reasons for this appear to have been animosity against IS-K within the Taliban’s ranks, fuelled by the considerable amount of blood spilled; resentment over the allocation of scarce financial resources to paying reconciled opponents; and the failure to make significant progress towards a wider elite bargain involving Salafi elites.</p> + +<p>Time will tell if the failed reconciliation process is going to be a great missed opportunity for the Taliban. IS-K’s financial weakness could lead to its terminal decline without much Taliban effort, of course, but financial difficulties could still be reversed in the future, in which case the Taliban might regret having neglected their promising reconciliation efforts. While the strong foreign component of IS-K is clearly not susceptible to being enticed to reintegrate, IS-K nowadays needs Afghan participation more than ever – it cannot rely on Pakistanis for dispersed underground operations in cities and villages. If the Taliban were able to substantially cut into IS-K’s approximately 3,000 Afghan members, the group’s viability as an insurgent organisation in Afghanistan would be comprehensively undermined.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Antonio Giustozzi</strong> is the senior research fellow at RUSI in the Terrorism and Conflict research group. He has been working in and on Afghanistan in various respects since the 1990s and has published extensively on the conflict and specifically the Taliban and the Islamic State. His main research interests are global jihadism in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, the security sector, state-building and insurgencies. He is currently project director for Strive Afghanistan, which is pioneering new P/CVE approaches. He is also associated with the LSE (South Asia Centre) and was previously associated with War Studies at KCL.</p>Antonio GiustozziThis paper examines the strategies employed by the Taliban in response to the threat posed by the Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K) in 2021–22.Blockchain For Democracies2023-10-25T12:00:00+08:002023-10-25T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/blockchain-for-democracies<p><em>In a world increasingly overflowing with data, blockchain is neither a panacea nor solely an instrument of cryptocurrencies but rather a tool that offers intriguing applications to support democratic governance, including in Ukraine.</em></p> <excerpt /> @@ -438,7 +770,121 @@ <p><strong>Ryan C. Berg</strong> is director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also an adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America and visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Programme. His research focuses on U.S.-Latin America relations, authoritarian regimes, armed conflict, strategic competition, and trade and development issues. He also studies Latin America’s criminal groups and the region’s governance and security challenges.</p> -<p><strong>Henry Ziemer</strong> is a research associate with the Americas Program at CSIS, where he supports the program’s research agenda and coordinates event planning and outreach.</p>Ryan C. Berg and Henry ZiemerChina has long couched its engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean in primarily economic terms. However, China is becoming increasingly strident in its efforts to bolster defense and security initiatives in the Western Hemisphere.The Orient Express2023-10-16T12:00:00+08:002023-10-16T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/the-orient-express<p><em>Dozens of high-resolution satellite images taken in recent months reveal that Russia has likely begun shipping North Korean munitions at scale, opening a new supply route that could have profound consequences for the war in Ukraine and international security dynamics in East Asia.</em></p> +<p><strong>Henry Ziemer</strong> is a research associate with the Americas Program at CSIS, where he supports the program’s research agenda and coordinates event planning and outreach.</p>Ryan C. Berg and Henry ZiemerChina has long couched its engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean in primarily economic terms. However, China is becoming increasingly strident in its efforts to bolster defense and security initiatives in the Western Hemisphere.UK In N. European Security2023-10-17T12:00:00+08:002023-10-17T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/uk-in-northern-european-security<p><em>This Policy Brief is to explain why the UK has chosen to explicitly prioritise the security of Northern Europe following Russia’s war in Ukraine.</em></p> + +<excerpt /> + +<h3 id="introduction">Introduction</h3> + +<p>Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine was an inflection point for European security. For the UK, it prompted a “refresh” of its defence, security and foreign policy. The March 2023 Integrated Review Refresh (IR2023) concluded that “the most pressing national security and foreign policy priority in the short-to-medium term is to address the threat posed by Russia to European security … and denying Russia any strategic benefit from its invasion”. Underpinning this ambition, the Refresh committed the UK to “lead and galvanise where we have most value to add, giving particular priority … to the contribution we can make in northern Europe as a security actor” (p. 11).</p> + +<p>The purpose of this Policy Brief is to explain why the UK has chosen to explicitly prioritise the security of Northern Europe following Russia’s war against Ukraine. It identifies exactly where the UK is best placed to lead and galvanise to address the current and likely future Russian threat. There is no common definition of “Northern Europe” among Allies, so the Brief defines the region collectively as the sub-regions of the Arctic, the North Atlantic, the High North and the Baltic Sea region, extending to Estonia – the location of the UK-led NATO multinational battlegroup.</p> + +<p>The explicit prioritisation of Northern Europe is a natural evolution of UK policy, and the increased investment in the region addresses both immediate security requirements – the acute Russian threat – and future ones, as rapidly melting ice in the Arctic creates viable sea lines of communication directly linking the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific – priority one and two geographic “strategic arenas” (pp. 3, 9) for the UK respectively. Given this, Northern Europe is a “transitional theatre” for the UK, where enhanced engagement now can produce value and strategic advantage for the UK – and its allies – in the future.</p> + +<p>The UK offers unique value to Northern Europe as a security actor for three principal reasons. First, the UK, as a regional geopolitical heavyweight, acts as a substantial backstop to the US presence and engagement. Second, the UK provides specialist military capabilities, spanning warfighting and sub-threshold, such as anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and other sub-sea capabilities that are in short supply in Europe and best match the Russian threat. Third, the geostrategic position of the British homeland – within the North Atlantic – is critical to the successful execution of NATO’s new regional defence plan for “the Atlantic and European Arctic” and “the Baltic and Central Europe”, alongside its transatlantic reinforcement plan. With growing and ambitious security commitments to Northern Europe, the UK is sending a strong message of reassurance to Allies and a strong signal of deterrence to Russia, and to China as a “near-Arctic state”, in the context of a growing partnership between the two powers in the Arctic.</p> + +<p>The research for this Brief is drawn from two main sources. First, a review of UK government and NATO policy documents, including the 2021 Integrated Review and Defence Command Paper alongside their 2023 updates, and the UK’s Arctic and High North policies. Second, four expert-led roundtable discussions held between April 2022 and June 2023 and attended by Norwegian, UK and US officials and academics, in London, Oslo and Washington, DC. It is augmented with analysis of official government announcements, research papers and media reporting. This Policy Brief is part of a two-year transatlantic security dialogue in collaboration between RUSI, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The project is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and focuses on the Norwegian, UK and US roles in securing Northern Europe.</p> + +<h3 id="why-is-the-uk-prioritising-northern-europe">Why is the UK Prioritising Northern Europe?</h3> + +<p>The explicit prioritisation of Northern European security is an evolution of UK policy over the past decade. The Arctic, and the High North in particular, have become central to UK strategic thinking, and they are the only regions to receive specific policy documents. UK objectives in the region are a blend of hard and soft security issues, majoring on: the protection of UK and Allied critical national infrastructure (CNI); reinforcing the rules-based international order and enforcing freedom of navigation; and managing climate change (pp. 10, 11). Central to the UK approach has been a similar security policy outlook and working with likeminded Allies and partners, in particular Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) members, on Euro-Atlantic security challenges, the utility of military force and the pervasive Russian threat. Indeed, UK engagement has increased significantly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; multilaterally through NATO, and minilaterally through the JEF and the Northern Group of Defence Ministers. These engagements are underpinned by bilateral and trilateral agreements, including most significantly the strong mutual security guarantees offered to both Finland and Sweden during the NATO membership process. The UK is also heavily reliant on the region for energy, with Norway being the UK’s primary gas supplier.</p> + +<p>The acute Russian threat in Northern Europe binds Allies together. Despite Russia severely weakening and fixing a large portion of its land forces in Ukraine, the country’s naval capabilities remain largely intact, through its Northern Fleet, including strategic nuclear forces, and its Baltic Fleet – notwithstanding heavy losses (p. 6) for two Russian Arctic brigades. Russia also intends to militarily reinforce the region in response to NATO enlargement. This short-term conventional military weakness is likely to push Russia to rely more heavily on hybrid activity and nuclear signalling to achieve its objectives, which may become a potential source of conflict escalation, and which feature heavily in its 2022 Maritime Doctrine. Furthermore, some European intelligence agencies, such as the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service, assess that Russia could still exert “credible military pressure” on the Baltic states, and its military capabilities near the Estonian border could be “quantitatively reconstituted in up to four years” (p. 11).</p> + +<p>As NATO orientates its new defence posture to defend “every inch” (p. 6) of NATO territory, the UK is galvanising its northern flank into the most secure Alliance region, a region that is continually the target of Russian hybrid aggression and exposed to persistent conventional and nuclear threat. The rationale for the UK’s strategic focus in the region and how this is perceived by the regional actors has been summarised thus:</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">Given that the United Kingdom shares historical, cultural, and geopolitical ties with the Nordic countries, the UK would benefit from having all Nordic countries within NATO. As relatively small countries, the Nordics would certainly benefit from the UK’s support, especially related to logistics, intelligence sharing, and the security provided by the nuclear umbrella. If combined with the UK’s capabilities and focus, this unified North would outrank any other European force structure and would help secure both the Eastern and Northern Flank of NATO.</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>The UK is the European power best placed to lead and galvanise NATO’s northern flank and support the full integration of Finland (and Sweden) into the Alliance, both through providing strategic depth and its capabilities (military, non-military and command enablers), and through its significant defence and security engagement in the region.</p> + +<h3 id="the-uk-as-a-backstop-for-us-engagement-and-presence-in-northern-europe">The UK as a Backstop for US Engagement and Presence in Northern Europe</h3> + +<p>The US is the indispensable security partner for Northern Europe, a region that has a strongly transatlantic outlook. For Nordic states, and to a lesser extent Baltic states, strategic depth is secured primarily through NATO and the Article 5 security guarantee, and augmented by bilateral and trilateral agreements that bind the US to the region. For example, Norway’s defence relies on a denial ambition until Allied (US) reinforcements are in position. Moreover, Norway’s role as a reception, staging and onward integration location for US reinforcements will become more important as Finland, and soon Sweden, joins the Alliance. Indeed, the inclusion of Finland and Sweden in NATO defensive plans will provide increased strategic depth, especially with the scale of forces that Finland can mobilise at short notice, but Nordic defence will remain heavily reliant on follow-on forces from the US. Therefore, the fundamental risk that security actors in Northern Europe must manage is the possible reduction of attention and corresponding drawdown in US assets to redeploy to the Indo-Pacific as US security concerns there grow, especially if the war in Ukraine ends on terms that benefit NATO, or a US president less sympathetic to European security is elected in 2024. This possibility is a strategic risk for Northern Europe, not only in terms of overall mass in the form of combat-capable brigades, but also in terms of specialist capabilities such as ISR. In the short term, the UK is the only European country realistically able to support Europe’s “ISR gap” in Northern Europe, and it is unlikely to contribute more brigades to NATO’s New Force Model for the remainder of the decade.</p> + +<p>As a major regional power, the UK’s engagement and capabilities are best able to mitigate any potential US shortfall and provide enhanced strategic depth. US Arctic priorities are motivated by strategic competition, whereas the Nordic states prioritise defence and deterrence against Russia. The UK is positioned on a scale between the two, and can play an important role in bridging between them. Specifically, the UK is best placed to lead in two areas, both of which already enjoy high levels of cooperation with the US, providing critical continuity.</p> + +<p>First, NATO considers Russia’s ability to disrupt Atlantic reinforcement in the High North a “strategic challenge” (p. 4). The UK has traditionally secured the Greenland–Iceland–UK gap with ASW capabilities and, more recently, through the UK–US–Norway trilateral interoperability (p. 21) of the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft (MPA), which increases availability of a critical ISR capability and allows it to operate further north. The ability to operate further north is a growing requirement, as Russia has refitted multiple vessels with the 3M-54 Kalibr missile, which gives a longer range to precision strike operations, allowing Russian assets to enjoy better protection of its Arctic and High North defensive bastions, in turn drawing NATO assets further north. To meet this challenge, Norway is hosting NATO submarines (p. 22), mainly from the UK and the US, in new Norwegian facilities to enable operations to push further north to match Russia’s reach. Moreover, the UK has established a land and littoral presence in the High North, now operating from a new facility in Norway called Camp Viking. With a multi-domain presence and specialist capabilities, including logistic and intelligence enablers, the UK is the best placed European nation to secure end-to-end transatlantic reinforcements from the US to NATO’s eastern front, thereby delivering strategic depth.</p> + +<p>Second, the UK can lead on re-establishing and maintaining strategic stability, consistent with “a new long-term goal to manage the risks of miscalculation and escalation between major powers, upholding strategic stability through strategic-level dialogue and an updated approach to arms control and counter-proliferation” (p. 13). The UK, as a European nuclear power, will be a valuable actor in the region, which also hosts Russian strategic and non-strategic nuclear forces. Moreover, the UK is well placed to support Finland and Sweden as they join a nuclear alliance and, for the first time, have a direct role in nuclear policy and planning, by providing a greater understanding of deterrence, risk reduction and arms control.</p> + +<h3 id="galvanising-nato-command-and-control">Galvanising NATO Command and Control</h3> + +<p>Finland, and eventually Sweden, joining NATO fundamentally changes defence and security policy in Northern Europe. Finland’s membership has already doubled the NATO border with Russia, and the inclusion of Sweden will expand the Supreme Allied Commander Europe’s land area of operations by more than 866,000 km2. While this obviously presents significant opportunities for NATO, there are also considerable challenges. The UK has an interest in being a security “integrator” in the region by supporting its newest members and building coherence between Nordic and Baltic regional plans and Alliance command and control (C2). Here there is a significant opportunity for the UK to lead and galvanise and make a major contribution to Euro-Atlantic security.</p> + +<p>The enlargement creates NATO C2 headaches for Northern Europe, as does the timing gap between the two countries joining. Finland has joined under the command of Joint Force Command (JFC) Brunssum, alongside the Baltic states, Poland and Germany. However, Norway (and likely Sweden when it joins) falls under JFC Norfolk in the US, which is responsible for the North Atlantic, including the Arctic. This arrangement (p. 14) creates C2 incoherence between the “European Arctic and Atlantic” and “Baltic and Central Europe” defence plans, which will make their execution more difficult and create potential friction precisely when the Nordic states are finally united in NATO, and it could set back growing defence integration efforts between them. Integrating NATO’s regional plans and Nordic–Baltic security policy more broadly will be critical to their delivery. Specifically, better integrating Finland and Estonia would best serve this purpose, securing the Baltic Sea and containing Russia and denying it freedom of manoeuvre in wartime between St Petersburg and access to the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad.</p> + +<p>UK engagement and interests straddle the Nordic and Baltic states through the JEF, the Northern Group of Defence Ministers, and close bilateral security cooperation with both Finland and Estonia – the latter being the location of the UK-led NATO multinational battlegroup. The July 2023 Defence Command Paper Refresh stated:</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">As the Alliance looks to welcome in two new members, the UK will also lead the collaboration amongst Allies to shape a revised Control and Command structure, with a specific focus on Northern Europe – the regional area of greatest importance to our homeland defence (p. 62).</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>As an established European framework nation, the UK – known for its C2 ability, structures and maturity – would be well placed to manage Finland and Swedish integration and C2 coherence in Northern Europe. During the Cold War, the UK was a C2 enabler for NATO, emphasising strengths in the naval and air domains, through Allied Forces Northern Europe and UK Command through Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces, Northern Europe. Today, the UK hosts both NATO Maritime Command (MARCOM) and JEF C2 through Standing Joint Force Headquarters, which, since the Russian invasion, has deployed nodes and liaison officers across Northern Europe.</p> + +<h3 id="uk-leadership-of-the-jef">UK Leadership of the JEF</h3> + +<p>The JEF has developed into a key mechanism for the UK to provide leadership in Northern Europe and galvanise the Nordic and Baltic states together to optimise defence and deterrence against Russia. In 2022, the JEF came of age. The first-ever JEF leaders’ meeting was held the day after Russia’s invasion, followed by two more during the year, which included a commitment to developing a 10-year vision ahead of the 2023 leaders’ summit.</p> + +<p>The September 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea brought into sharper focus the security requirement to better protect CNI, and highlighted the risk of attacks specifically to undersea assets. This was reinforced by the October 2023 damage to the Balticconnector natural gas pipeline and communications cable between Finland and Estonia likely caused by “external activity”. This is an area where the Russian threat is acute. NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security, David Cattler, has warned of an increase in Russian submarine and underwater activity, including “actively mapping allied critical infrastructure both on land and on the seabed”.</p> + +<p>To respond, the JEF will focus activity on countering hybrid aggression in its area of operations of the North Atlantic, High North and Baltic, especially in relation to the protection of CNI, including underwater cables and pipelines. Here, the UK provides leadership, through committing to protect Allied CNI, alongside upholding freedom of navigation and international norms in the region. Immediately following the Nord Stream attacks, the UK announced that two Multirole Ocean Surveillance ships would be sped into service. This capability, alongside Astute-class submarines, mine-countermeasure vessels and RAF MPA, will be critical to protecting underwater CNI. Moreover, MARCOM hosts NATO’s new Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell, and the UK has signed new bilateral agreements such as the UK–Norway strategic partnership on undersea threats. The UK, as a regional geopolitical heavyweight, is ideally situated to engage with the JEF collectively and individually; to link its agenda to other key regional actors, such as France, Germany and Poland; and to develop greater JEF coherence between the myriad of security institutions in Northern Europe, including NATO, the EU, the Northern Group of Defence Ministers, Nordic Defence Cooperation and the Arctic Security Forces Roundtable.</p> + +<h3 id="conclusion-the-uk-orients-to-future-challenges-in-northern-europe">Conclusion: The UK Orients to Future Challenges in Northern Europe</h3> + +<p>The explicit prioritisation of Northern Europe addresses both immediate UK security requirements – defence and deterrence against Russia – and future challenges – China’s increasing presence in the Arctic and High North as a “near-Arctic state”, and growing Sino-Russian cooperation. The IR2023 declared that the prosperity and security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific were “inextricably linked”, upgraded China as an “epoch-defining challenge”, and cemented the Indo-Pacific “tilt” as a permanent pillar of UK foreign policy (pp. 9, 3, 22). A rapidly heating Arctic climate will make the Northern Sea Route increasingly navigable during the summer and the Transpolar Sea Route will likely be usable by 2050 (p. 36). This transformational geopolitical change will directly link the UK’s two priority geographic “strategic arenas” – politically, economically and militarily – which will fundamentally impact UK and Euro-Atlantic security. Given this, NATO may have not only to contend with Russia, but also with a more assertive Chinese presence in the Arctic and High North. Therefore, heavily investing in Northern Europe now will enhance UK strategic advantage, reassure Allies and deter future threats.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Ed Arnold</strong> is a Research Fellow for European Security within the International Security department at RUSI. His experience covers defence, intelligence, counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, within the public and private sector. His primary research focus is on the transformation of European security following Russia’s war on Ukraine. Specifically, he covers the evolving Euro-Atlantic security architecture, the security of northern Europe, and the UK contribution to European security through NATO, the Joint Expeditionary Force, and other fora. Ed has a particular interest in UK National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Reviews.</p>Ed ArnoldThis Policy Brief is to explain why the UK has chosen to explicitly prioritise the security of Northern Europe following Russia’s war in Ukraine.Containing A Catastrophe2023-10-17T12:00:00+08:002023-10-17T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/containing-a-catastrophe<p><em>As Israel prepares to launch a ground offensive in Gaza, there is a real risk that the war could escalate into a wider conflagration. Efforts to contain the conflict will test key relationships across the region.</em></p> + +<excerpt /> + +<p>It is already clear that Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October was a watershed moment. It was the deadliest attack on the State of Israel since its existence; its scale and brutality make it paradigm-shifting. Looking to past conflicts – the Gaza wars of 2008/09, 2012 and 2014, for example, or the Israel–Hezbollah war in 2006 – therefore has only limited value. A week after the attack, there are two broad scenarios for how this crisis could unfold.</p> + +<h3 id="two-scenarios-for-escalation">Two Scenarios for Escalation</h3> + +<p>In the first scenario, the Israel–Hamas war could stay contained to Gaza and southern Israel. The launch of Israel’s impending attack on Hamas “from the air, sea and land” will have unpredictable consequences. But there is still the possibility that the war could remain limited in scope, at least geographically.</p> + +<p>In the second scenario, the war could expand beyond southern Israel and become a regional conflict. The escalation logic of this scenario is plain: the unfolding war in Gaza could lead other groups that define themselves through their resistance or enmity towards Israel – most notably armed Palestinian factions in the West Bank; Hezbollah in Lebanon; Iranian-backed groups in Syria, Iraq or elsewhere; or even Iran itself – to conclude that they must get involved lest they lose legitimacy. A major attack on Israel by any of these actors would likely be met with a furious response from the Israeli military, which would in turn further fuel escalation in the region.</p> + +<p>Thus far, the clashes and skirmishes that have occurred in the West Bank and across the Israeli-Lebanese and Israeli-Syrian borders have remained relatively limited, indicating a level of intentional restraint on all sides. Nevertheless, the escalation scenario should not be dismissed as alarmist. Much will be written in the coming months about how it was possible for Israel to fail to see Hamas’s 7 October attack coming. One conclusion is likely to be that there was a failure of imagination: Israeli and other intelligence services may have been aware of various different Hamas actions or of Israel’s own vulnerabilities, but the dots were not joined together – it wasn’t just that no one thought that an attack of such scale was possible, but that no one had thought of such an attack at all. Policymakers around the world, including in the UK, now have a responsibility not to commit the same mistake and to take a potential escalation of the conflict – even beyond all precedent – seriously.</p> + +<p>To be clear, even the first scenario is catastrophic. The war in Gaza, like the attack that provoked it, has already reached unprecedented levels of brutality, bloodshed and destruction. The Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, together with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had no hand in Hamas’s actions at all, are in mortal jeopardy. Even among the combatants – both Hamas and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) – casualties must be expected at rates not seen before. Yet still, the second scenario is much worse.</p> + +<h3 id="regional-de-escalation-upended--and-tested">Regional De-Escalation Upended – and Tested</h3> + +<p>Hamas’s attack has upended the regional trend towards de-escalation and reducing tensions that has prevailed in the Middle East over the past three years. The notion that governments in the region could agree to put their differences aside, rebuild diplomatic relations and focus on shared interests in economic development – all while leaving the leaving the root causes and underlying conflicts that led to instability and tensions in the first place unaddressed – has been exposed as untenable. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict – or, for that matter, the ongoing conflicts in Libya, Syria and Yemen, or the socio-economic cleavages in many other countries in the region – cannot be ignored or put in boxes, no matter how much governments in the region and beyond may want to focus on more positive agendas.</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">Governments across the region are likely to come under immense popular pressure as their populations rally in support of the Palestinians in Gaza</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>At the same time, however, the Israel–Hamas war and the real threat of its escalation into a regional conflagration will now test the new relationships that have been formed over the past three years – between Israel and the Gulf Arab states, between Israel and Turkey, between Turkey and Egypt and the Gulf Arab states, and between the Gulf Arab states and Iran. Governments across the region, from Ankara and Cairo to Riyadh and even Tehran, have a shared interest in at the very least containing the current crisis to remain within the confines of the first scenario. Many of them are likely to come under immense popular pressure as their pro-Palestinian (though not necessarily pro-Hamas) populations rally in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. But the drivers for their push towards de-escalation, including the conclusion that escalation only begets more instability in the region, and the desire for stability and economic development, remain unchanged.</p> + +<p>Iran’s precise role in Hamas’s 7 October attack will likely become clearer in the coming weeks and months, but it is incontrovertible that Tehran now has significant agency in determining whether the war escalates or not. Threatening statements by Iran’s foreign minister, warning Israel – or “the Zionist entity” as he calls it – to halt its operations in Gaza or risk suffering “a huge earthquake,” should be taken very seriously. It is important to note that Iran does not fully control its partners in the region. Hamas, Hezbollah, the groups it supports in Syria and Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen all have their own political agendas and the ability to make decisions. But Tehran certainly has more influence over them than anyone else.</p> + +<p>The US and its Western allies, including the UK, are already working to deter Iran. The rapid deployment of a US aircraft carrier group to the Eastern Mediterranean in the days after 7 October, now joined by two Royal Navy ships, is surely meant to send at least two distinct messages: to reassure Israel, and to deter Iran and its partners across the region.</p> + +<p>Others can do more than send deterring signals to Iran – and are doing so. On 11 October, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke with Iran’s President Ibrahim Raisi about Riyadh’s efforts to “stop the ongoing escalation”; it was the first-ever publicised phone call between the two men. Other governments across the region, especially in the Gulf, are likely similarly seeking to convince Iran not to push for further escalation.</p> + +<h3 id="short--and-long-term-challenges-for-regional-governments">Short- and Long-Term Challenges for Regional Governments</h3> + +<p>The Gulf Arab states, together with Turkey and Egypt, also play an important role with regard to the first scenario and the ongoing war in Gaza. Their urgent calls on Israel to moderate or even end its operations in Gaza are unlikely to be heeded anytime soon, but they can nevertheless have a meaningful impact.</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">In the longer term, Western capitals must recognise that they cannot turn their backs on the Middle East, however much they might want to</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>Egypt, which shares the only border with Gaza that is not directly controlled by Israel, is under enormous pressure to allow refugees to enter its territory. Thus far, Cairo has refused. It worries that an influx of refugees could destabilise the Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt has struggled to contain a low-level insurgency for the past decade, and further undermine the already struggling Egyptian economy. Perhaps most importantly, it fears that refugees could end up staying in Egypt indefinitely, unable to return to Gaza either due to the destruction wrought by the war, or because Israel – once in control of the territory – might not allow them to come back. It is incumbent upon the US, other Western governments and the richer Gulf Arab states to work with Cairo to alleviate these concerns, including by putting pressure on Israel to allow passage across the Gaza–Egypt border in both directions.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Qatar, and perhaps Egypt and Turkey, appear to be the only international actors (besides Iran) that could feasibly exercise a degree of influence over Hamas with regard to the Israeli hostages taken on 7 October. Doha, Cairo and Ankara have all been able to engage with Hamas’s political leadership in the past. However, it is unclear whether their interlocutors still have any real influence on the situation on the ground.</p> + +<p>In the longer term, regional countries – most importantly Saudi Arabia, but also Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE and others – will have a crucial role to play in helping to rebuild a Palestinian political leadership that can legitimately speak for the Palestinian people. With the 7 October attack, Hamas has completely disqualified itself from ever being regarded as a legitimate political entity – whether by Israel or most of the international community. At the same time, Hamas’s attack has also once again exposed the Palestinian Authority in its current form as woefully ineffective. Once the current war ends, there must be a re-engagement with the Middle East Peace Process, which has been completely neglected in recent years by all sides. Riyadh and others in the region who are committed to building a more stable Middle East are best placed to help identify and then build up a Palestinian leadership that is strong enough to eventually rebuild Gaza, seriously govern the West Bank and work with Israeli counterparts (who must also be found and empowered) towards lasting solutions.</p> + +<h3 id="the-west-cannot-ignore-the-middle-east">The West Cannot Ignore the Middle East</h3> + +<p>If Hamas’s attack has upended – or at the very least interrupted – the regional drive towards de-escalation, it has also highlighted that the West’s approach towards the region in recent years is unsustainable. Policymakers in the US and the UK and across Europe have sought to deprioritise the region, partly due to more urgent crises demanding their attention – most notably Russia’s war in Ukraine – and partly driven by a fatigue with the intractability of the region’s conflicts.</p> + +<p>In the coming weeks and months, Washington, London, Brussels and others must work with partners across the region to prevent escalation. They must persuade Israel – likely behind closed doors – to exercise as much restraint as possible, and support and empower regional leaders in their efforts to stave off a wider conflagration. In the longer term, they must recognise that they cannot turn their backs on the Middle East, however much they might want to. Focusing on geopolitical challenges that are identified as more strategically important – confronting Russia, pivoting/tilting to the Indo-Pacific and dealing with China, to name but a few – is hardly possible when the Middle East is spiralling into turmoil.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Tobias Borck</strong> is Senior Research Fellow for Middle East Security Studies at the International Security Studies department at RUSI. His main research interests include the international relations of the Middle East, and specifically the foreign, defence and security policies of Arab states, particularly the Gulf monarchies, as well as European – especially German and British – engagement with the Middle East.</p>Tobias BorckAs Israel prepares to launch a ground offensive in Gaza, there is a real risk that the war could escalate into a wider conflagration. Efforts to contain the conflict will test key relationships across the region.The Orient Express2023-10-16T12:00:00+08:002023-10-16T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/the-orient-express<p><em>Dozens of high-resolution satellite images taken in recent months reveal that Russia has likely begun shipping North Korean munitions at scale, opening a new supply route that could have profound consequences for the war in Ukraine and international security dynamics in East Asia.</em></p> <excerpt /> @@ -557,49 +1003,212 @@ <p>The challenge of how to take urban ground without destroying the city is insurmountable with the tools currently available. Moreover, because there is no prize for second place in war, and because sensor dominance quickly leads to an asymmetry in casualties, weaker forces will retreat into dense, urban terrain. Ukrainian troops did this in Mariupol. British forces expect to have to operate from urban strongholds in future conflict. Hamas and Islamic State’s decision to fall back into urban terrain made sound tactical sense.</p> -<p>The laws of war are effective when parties view them as viable instructions for how to fight. When they prohibit fighting altogether, they are likely to be ignored. How to craft rules that protect civilians in this context, therefore, requires thoughtful proposals. The proposal advocated by some groups to exclude explosive weapons from urban fighting is a non-starter, as it would confer such an advantage on to the defender as to prevent an attacker from prosecuting operations.</p> +<p>The laws of war are effective when parties view them as viable instructions for how to fight. When they prohibit fighting altogether, they are likely to be ignored. How to craft rules that protect civilians in this context, therefore, requires thoughtful proposals. The proposal advocated by some groups to exclude explosive weapons from urban fighting is a non-starter, as it would confer such an advantage on to the defender as to prevent an attacker from prosecuting operations.</p> + +<p>For Israel, tactical options are constrained by a range of additional factors. Iron Dome – the air defence system protecting Israeli cities from rocket attack – has a finite number of interceptors. Given the massive threat if Hizbullah joins the fray, Israel is keen to limit its expenditure of interceptors by interdicting left of launch. The threat of escalation with Hizbullah also means that Israel feels it necessary to preserve combat power. Both factors lead to an approach to Gaza that is fast and favours firepower. This weights the judgement as to military necessity.</p> + +<p>In the absence of tools and methods for fighting among the people, advertising intent and clear avenues for civilians to vacate the battlespace is a viable alternative. This is what Israel has done by instructing civilians to move South of the Gaza River, while indicating the routes and times where movement will not be interdicted. The proposed timeframe for evacuation was short, although it has now been extended by delays to the ground operation.</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">A policy to permanently drive Palestinians from Gaza would amount to ethnic cleansing and a war crime</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>Despite these measures, many civilians – as always in these cases – will choose to stay. Furthermore, in this specific context, many Palestinians fear that Israel is not trying to move them to a safe place, but instead trying to get them to vacate land which will be occupied and eventually settled. Palestinians fear that they will not be allowed to return. This is not the stated policy of the Israeli government. However, given Israel’s past conduct and the statements of several of its current ministers, this fear is understandable. It is also important to note that Israel has a history of valid tactical military justifications being instrumentalised by a minority within its cabinet to radically reshape its policy over time. This is how Operation Peace for Galilee in 1982, authorised by the Israeli cabinet to secure its northern border, was morphed in stages by Defence Minister Ariel Sharon into a siege of Beirut.</p> + +<p>A policy to permanently drive Palestinians from Gaza would amount to ethnic cleansing and a war crime. It is therefore vital that, alongside support to Israel in defending itself, the international community is clear as to its expectations in confirming Israeli intent, and the consequences if that intent morphs into something illegal. One clear test is whether Israel will help to make the area to which people are evacuating safe by allowing food, medicine and clean water to be moved into southern Gaza.</p> + +<p>It is also clear, however, that the international community will lack any credibility or authority on the issue if it simply demands a return to the status-quo ante. For many Palestinians, the progressive erosion of their control of the West Bank was choking off any prospect of a path to peace. For Israelis, the massacre conducted by Hamas on 7 October fundamentally changed their calculus. For years, Israel has been fearful as Iran and Hizbullah have consolidated their hold on Lebanon and Syria, amassing an arsenal of sophisticated weapons. In combination with the training and support to Hamas and the infiltration of Judea and Samaria, the IDF had come to view the status quo – amid increasing US disengagement from the region – as similarly unsustainable.</p> + +<p>The IDF’s assessment today is that if the threat is left to expand, it will eventually threaten the viability of the Israeli state. Thus, their objective in the current conflict is not to simply inflict a dose of pain on Hamas to deter further fighting, but to systematically destroy its military capacity to conduct operations and thereby write down one of the threats. This risks Hizbullah intervening. But given that the Israeli security state fears things getting worse over time, many in the security establishment feel that if a fight must happen, then they would rather have it today.</p> + +<p>For the international community, therefore, while deterring a regional escalation should be an objective, a mere temporary “stability” is unlikely to look attractive to either side. If the international community wants long-term stability, it must be more proactively engaged in exploring a path to peace, rather than pursuing a systematic disengagement that simply cedes the region to Iran, which has characterised Washington’s approach for the last three years. There may emerge, from the ashes of this unfolding tragedy, an opportunity to build a new road to peace, just as there is the risk that the flames will engulf what remains of a rules-based international system that so many words have been pledged to defend.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Jack Watling</strong> is Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute. Jack works closely with the British military on the development of concepts of operation, assessments of the future operating environment, and conducts operational analysis of contemporary conflicts.</p>Jack WatlingThe legal and ethical challenges of operating in densely populated areas are going to be a tragic constant of 21st century warfare, with no easy solutions.Change Or False Alarm?2023-10-13T12:00:00+08:002023-10-13T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/change-or-false-alarm<p><em>A potential shift in China’s approach to nuclear weapons could indicate that it is taking a page from Moscow’s book.</em></p> + +<excerpt /> + +<p>China recently released its proposal for a new global order: “Proposal of the People’s Republic of China on the Reform and Development of Global Governance”. The blueprint repeats several earlier talking points on how China aims to change the global order. The pillars of the new order lean heavily on Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative, Global Development Initiative, and Global Civilisation Initiative. As an unprecedently open step towards a global order that mirrors the governance of a one-party state, the proposal deserves in-depth analysis beyond the scope of this article. A significant issue examined here is China dropping its long-term No First Use of nuclear weapons policy from the proposal; this raises eyebrows as global security risks intensify with a protracted Russian war of aggression against Ukraine (where China is siding with Russia), along with China’s aggressive behaviour around Taiwan.</p> + +<p>China officially became the world’s fifth nuclear weapon-possessing state in 1964 and was then recognised under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). For decades, China carefully advanced its nuclear arsenal to maintain its minimum deterrent strategy. However, in recent years, China has clearly abandoned this strategy, heavily increasing its count of nuclear weapons and becoming the world’s third-largest nuclear weapons power. The Pentagon has estimated that if the current trajectory continues, China could field approximately 1,500 warheads by 2035.</p> + +<p>In August 2023, at the NPT Review Conference, the Director-General of the Department of Arms Control of the Foreign Ministry of China, Sun Xiaobo, reaffirmed China’s 1964 policy “not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances” and “not to threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states”.</p> + +<p>Nonetheless, a month later, China’s proposal for global governance seems to have dropped this decades-old policy. Up until August 2023, China had repeatedly reaffirmed its No First Use policy from 1964 onwards, although on some occasions Beijing has stretched it to exclude other nuclear powers, especially the US. The dual pledges of No First Use and No Threatening to Use nuclear weapons have long been cornerstones of China’s nuclear strategy. The fact that China’s proposal on global governance omits these commitments – while otherwise expressing China’s positions in a detailed manner – could indicate a change in China’s position on nuclear weapons, especially because China has never previously wavered or appeared ambiguous about these commitments.</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">China may have learned from Moscow’s capitalisation on European fear regarding Russian nuclear weapons use</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>China’s ultimate aim in its 1964 policy on the use of nuclear arms was “to deter others from using or threatening to use” nuclear weapons against China. Could dropping this from an important policy document simply be a mistake, or is this a deliberate new shift in policy, perhaps based on Xi Jinping’s analyses of “changes not seen in a hundred years”, or influenced by Russia’s threatening rhetoric directed at NATO allies regarding nuclear weapons?</p> + +<p>While China’s proposal for global governance demands that the international community oppose the threat or use of nuclear weapons, China appears to have excluded its unilateral pledge to do so. Beyond this, China’s tacit support for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine has cemented talking points on “invisible security” and how countries’ national security should not threaten that of others. China sees this as the root cause of the war in Ukraine. In Beijing’s view, “the crisis” – China still refuses to call the war anything else – stems from a flawed, unbalanced European security architecture, where other parties’ security concerns are ignored. In this context, multiple Chinese researchers have sided with Russia. Furthermore, following Finland’s NATO accession, a number of Chinese researchers took the view that since Russia could not match NATO’s conventional deterrence, Russia had no other option but to increase its nuclear arsenal.</p> + +<p>The consequences of China abandoning its No First Use/No Threatening to Use policy are minor at most; China has in any case refused to engage in any arms-control dialogue with the US. Thus, its policy promises have often been taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, two immediate implications of China’s potential new approach still come to mind. First, China’s quick nuclear build-up means that the US will face two nuclear-armed powers, China and Russia, working together as its adversaries. Second, China may have learned from Moscow’s capitalisation on European fear regarding Russian nuclear weapons in order to, at a minimum, delay help for Ukraine. Similarly, triggering fear by threatening the use of nuclear weapons could rein in Japan’s and other US allies’ willingness to defend Taiwan, if the People’s Liberation Army tries to take the island by force.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Sari Arho Havrén</strong> is a RUSI Associate Fellow based in Brussels. She specialises in China’s foreign relations, China foresight, and in great power competition. She is also a visiting scholar at the University of Helsinki.</p>Sari Arho HavrénA potential shift in China’s approach to nuclear weapons could indicate that it is taking a page from Moscow’s book.Seize Initiative In Ukraine2023-10-12T12:00:00+08:002023-10-12T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/seize-initiative-in-ukraine<p><em>Ukrainian forces retain the initiative in the war but advanced an average of only 90 meters per day on the southern front during the peak of their summer offensive, according to new CSIS analysis.</em> <excerpt></excerpt> <em>Russia’s extensive fortifications — which include minefields, trench networks, and support from artillery, attack helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft — have slowed Ukrainian advances. In particular, Russia has expanded the size of its minefields from 120 meters to 500 meters in some areas, making Ukraine the most heavily mined country in the world today. Ukrainian military progress is still possible, but the United States and other Western countries need to provide sustained military aid and other assistance.</em></p> + +<h3 id="introduction">Introduction</h3> + +<p>The war in Ukraine has become a test of political will and industrial capacity between two competing blocks: allied countries aiding Ukraine, such as the United States and numerous countries in Europe and Asia; and axis countries aiding Russia, such as China, North Korea, and Iran. Despite Ukraine’s efforts to liberate territory illegally seized by Russia, offensive operations have been slow. Some policymakers have erroneously argued that poor Ukrainian strategy has contributed to the slow pace of operations. According to proponents of this view, the Ukrainian military mistakenly focused on conducting operations along multiple fronts rather than on a single front in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.</p> + +<p>To better understand military operations in Ukraine, this analysis asks three questions. What is the state of the offense-defense balance in the Ukraine war? What factors have impacted Ukrainian offensive operations? What are the policy implications for the United States and other Western countries?</p> + +<p>Ukrainian operations raise the age-old question in warfare about whether it is easier for militaries to seize territory or defend it. This phenomenon is called the “offense-defense balance,” and it refers to the relative strength between the offense and defense in warfare. The main idea is that there are several factors, such as geography, force employment, strategy, and technology, that can influence whether the offense or defense has the advantage. When the offense has the advantage, it is generally easier for an attacking state to destroy its opponent’s military and seize territory than it is to defend one’s own territory. When the defense has the advantage, it is generally easier to hold territory than it is to move forward and seize it.</p> + +<p>This analysis utilizes several sources of information. To understand historical rates of advance, this assessment compiles data on offensive campaigns from World War I through Ukraine’s 2023 offensive. It also examines open-source data on fortifications, unit positions, and the attrition of military equipment. In addition, it uses satellite imagery and drone footage of the battlefield in eastern and southern Ukraine to understand the challenges of offensive operations. Finally, the authors conducted interviews with Ukrainian, U.S., and European military officials.</p> + +<p>The analysis comes to three main conclusions. First, defense has the advantage in the war. This reality should not come as a major surprise. Carl von Clausewitz wrote in On War that “defense is a stronger form of fighting than attack” and that “the superiority of the defensive (if rightly understood) is very great, far greater than appears at first sight.” Ukrainian forces averaged approximately 90 meters of advance per day during their recent push on the southern front between early June and late August 2023.</p> + +<p>Second, the reason for the slow pace of advance was not poor Ukrainian strategic choices, as some have argued. Instead, it was likely caused by a Ukrainian change in force employment, especially the deliberate adoption of small-unit tactics, and the lack of key technology such as fighter aircraft for suppression of enemy air defense and close air support. In addition, Russia constructed substantial defensive fortifications, including minefields, and utilized attack helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) against advancing Ukrainian forces.</p> + +<p>Third, Ukraine still retains the initiative in the war, and the United States and other Western countries should provide long-term aid packages that help Ukraine strengthen its defense and prevent or deter a Russian counterattack in the future. They should also provide additional aid to help Ukraine on offense to maximize the possibility that it can retake as much territory as possible from Russia. After all, one of the United States’ most significant adversaries, Russia, has been reduced to a second- or third-rate military power without a single U.S. military casualty. As many as 120,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, as well as over 300,000 wounded, and Ukrainian soldiers have destroyed a massive number of Russian weapons systems, from main battle tanks and fighter aircraft to submarines and landing ships. U.S. aid to Ukraine should continue even with U.S. support to Israel likely to grow following the October 2023 Hamas attack, since Russia, Iran, and their partners represent a significant threat to U.S. interests.</p> + +<p>The rest of this brief is divided into three sections. The first examines the state of the war and the strength of the defensive advantage in Ukraine. The second section explores the factors contributing to the defensive advantage. The third outlines several policy implications for the United States and other Western countries.</p> + +<h3 id="defense-dominance">Defense Dominance</h3> + +<p>In early June 2023, Ukraine began a counteroffensive to retake territory illegally occupied by Russian forces in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts. Ukraine retains the operational initiative, but its relatively slow pace of advance and the trade-offs it has made to preserve personnel and equipment indicate that the defense has significant advantages.</p> + +<p>This section examines Ukraine’s efforts across three main fronts in summer 2023. First, Ukrainian offensive operations were primarily concentrated along the southern front, in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast and western portions of the Donetsk Oblast. Second, Ukraine was on the offensive in various locations along the eastern front in the Donetsk Oblast. Third Ukraine conducted raids across the Dnipro River in the Kherson Oblast, although it did not conduct larger military operation in the region. In addition, Russia and Ukraine were engaged in attacks using missiles, UASs, and special operations forces beyond the front lines in such areas as Crimea.</p> + +<p>Southern Front: Beginning in June 2023, Ukraine pursued two main lines of attack on the southern front: one toward the city of Melitopol and other toward the city of Berdiansk. Both cities are transit routes and logistical hubs for Russian forces throughout southern Ukraine and Crimea, the disruption of which represents significant strategic value to Ukraine. However, Ukraine’s progress on the southern front was slow, though deliberate.</p> + +<p>Ukraine’s most significant advance was around the town of Robotyne, in the direction of Melitopol. Ukraine advanced a total of roughly 7.6 kilometers from early June to late August 2023 — an average of approximately 90 meters per day. This advance was slow even when compared with historical offensives in which the attacker did not draw major benefit from surprise or from air superiority. The Ukrainian offensive did, however, continue to move forward, unlike many historical examples in which the attackers were thrown back.</p> + +<p>Ukraine also moved slower than in its previous offensives against Russia, in which it faced less organized defenses. In its 2023 counteroffensive, Ukraine faced a system of fortified defenses — extensively prepared trench lines, minefields, and other fieldworks. During its 2022 counteroffensive in the Kherson Oblast, Ukraine advanced 590 meters a day on average through prepared defenses — systems that include fortifications but that nevertheless were limited by time and resource constraints. Around the same time, Ukraine advanced rapidly in a counteroffensive in the Kharkiv Oblast, moving forward 7.5 kilometers a day on average and overcoming hasty defenses — systems constructed either in contact or when contact is imminent with opposing forces, and that therefore depend on enhancing the natural terrain.</p> + +<p>Figure 1 shows the average rate of advance for selected combined arms offensives, such as Galicia, the Somme, Gorzia, and Belleau Wood during World War I; Leningrad and Kursk-Oboyan during World War II; Deversoir (Chinese Farm) during the Yom Kippur War; and Ukraine in 2022 and 2023. Cases were selected from a universe of offensive campaigns lasting more than one day in which the attacker advanced, did not achieve substantial or complete surprise, and did not benefit from air superiority. In addition, cases were selected to ensure variation in geography, technology, time period, attacking and defending forces, and average advance. A much larger number of cases were also consulted, though not included in Figure 1.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/CcrYTor.png" alt="image01" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 1: Rates of Advance for Selected Combined Arms Offensives, 1914–2023.</strong> Source: CSIS analysis of open-source imagery of combat in Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv Oblasts; and <a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA220426.pdf">Robert L. Helmbold, “CDB90,” in A Compilation of Data on Rates of Advance in Land Combat Operations (Bethesda, MD: U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990)</a>. CDB90 is based on information collected over a period of several years by the Historical Evaluation and Research Organization and revised by the U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency.</em></p> + +<p>Slow progress on the southern front does not mean that Ukraine is failing or will fail in its objectives. It merely indicates that seizing terrain is difficult, probably more so than in its previous offensives. It is possible that Ukraine’s rate of advance may accelerate if it can overcome Russia’s defensive positions near the current front lines or if the Russian military experiences operational or strategic collapse. Such changes in fortune are not unprecedented in modern warfare. The Allied breakout from Normandy in Operation Cobra followed 17 days of grinding combat in which General Omar Bradley’s First Army suffered more than 40,000 casualties to advance 11 kilometers, an advance rate of approximately 650 meters per day. It succeeded despite the exhaustion of several of the infantry divisions tasked with the initial penetration, eventually breaking through German lines and advancing another 11 kilometers in the three days following the initial assault. The success was achieved due to German defensive failings and Allied airpower and demonstrates that slow advances are not incapable of becoming rapid breakthroughs. While Ukraine lacks the offensive advantages the Allies enjoyed in Normandy, the Russian military has also not demonstrated the operational competence of the German Wehrmacht in World War II. The example suggests that an accelerated advance remains possible, if unlikely.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/1DBsKJs.png" alt="image02" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 2: Russian Fortifications on the Southern Front.</strong> Note: Fortifications constructed before 2022 are not pictured. Source: <a href="https://read.bradyafrick.com/p/russian-field-fortifications-in-ukraine">Brady Africk, “Russian Field Fortifications in Ukraine,” Medium, bradyafrick.com, September 11, 2023</a>.</em></p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/N3jA8t8.png" alt="image03" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 3: Ukrainian Advance and Russian Fortifications around Robotyne, Ukraine.</strong> Source: CSIS analysis of Sentinel-2 imagery, maps from the Institute for the Study of War, and Africk, “Russian Field Fortifications in Ukraine.”</em></p> + +<p>Despite the slow progress, Ukraine advanced past the first of three lines of Russian fortifications in some areas along the southern front, as shown in Figure 3. It is possible that a Ukrainian breakthrough of the second line could accelerate the rate of advance, but Russia can probably still limit the strategic impact of a second breakthrough. Russia maintains a third defensive system consisting of a constellation of disconnected fortifications surrounding key cities in the region, as shown in Figure 2.</p> + +<p>Attrition ratios also suggest that the cost of seizing terrain has increased. As shown in Figure 4, Ukraine suffered greater attrition in its summer 2023 counteroffensive than in its previous offensives. According to open-source data, Russia lost only 2.0 fighting vehicles (defined as a tank, armored fighting vehicle, or infantry fighting vehicle) for each Ukrainian fighting vehicle destroyed, captured, abandoned, or seriously damaged in its current offensive. This ratio is less favorable to Ukraine than the 3.9 Russian vehicles lost per Ukrainian vehicle during its summer 2022 counteroffensive and 6.7 Russian vehicles lost per Ukrainian vehicle during the counteroffensive that drove Russia back from Kyiv in early 2022. While loss ratios and rates of advance are crude metrics for measuring Ukrainian progress, they together suggest that taking territory has been more difficult in the 2023 offensive than in Ukraine’s previous operations.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/YjEuw6L.png" alt="image04" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 4: Loss Ratio of Russian to Ukrainian Fighting Vehicles.</strong> Source: Data compiled by Daniel Scarnecchia from Oryx, <a href="https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html">“Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine,” Oryx</a>; and <a href="https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-ukrainian.html">“Attack On Europe: Documenting Ukrainian Equipment Losses During The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine,” Oryx</a>. Oryx data is not geolocated, and therefore the ratios are calculated from the total number of fighting vehicles confirmed to be lost across the entire country. The data are biased by the mode of collection, but the bias is assumed to be constant across the three Ukrainian offensives depicted. The 2022 Kyiv counteroffensive was coded as beginning March 16, 2022, the 2022 summer offensive as beginning August 29, 2022, and the 2023 summer counteroffensive as beginning June 4, 2023.</em></p> + +<p>Elsewhere along the southern front, Ukraine made limited advances south of the city of Velyka Novosilka in the direction of Berdiansk. Ukrainian forces liberated several towns in their advance south of Velyka Novosilka, engaging in significant fighting. However, Ukraine’s gains in the area represented only approximately 10 kilometers of advance from early June to late August 2023.</p> + +<p>Eastern Front: Unlike on the southern front, where Ukrainian offensive operations over the summer represented a new phase in the war, fighting on the eastern front has been continuous in some areas for over a year. Ukraine made marginal gains over the summer in a handful of pockets along the eastern front, particularly in the Donetsk Oblast. One example is around Bakhmut, where Russia has pressed since August 2022 for small territorial gains at high costs to personnel. Beginning in May 2023, however, Ukraine conducted a series of flanking counterattacks, retaking pieces of territory southwest and northwest of the city.</p> + +<p>Despite these successes, Ukraine has yet to approach key Russian positions beyond the current frontlines. These include the cities of Donetsk, Makiivka, and Horlivka, as well as the network of Russian fortifications that stretch between them. As CSIS assessed in June 2023, a Ukrainian attempt to push through these cities is unlikely because of the difficulties and likelihood of high casualties in urban warfare. For now, sustained Ukrainian operations on the eastern front have fixed large numbers of Russian forces that otherwise would have been available to reinforce Russian defensive efforts to the south.</p> + +<p>Unlike most other locations in Ukraine, Russian forces were involved in limited offensive operations in multiple areas along the eastern front over the summer. In addition to pushing back against Ukrainian gains in the Donetsk Oblast, Russia increased its presence near and attacks against the northern city of Kupiansk, which Ukraine liberated in September 2022.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/kEl8YK2.png" alt="image05" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 5: Russian Fortifications on the Eastern Front.</strong> Note: Fortifications constructed before 2022 are not pictured. Source: Africk, “Russian Field Fortifications in Ukraine.”</em></p> + +<p>Dnipro Front: Throughout the summer, Ukraine conducted limited crossings of the Dnipro River in the Kherson Oblast to perform reconnaissance and raid Russian positions. These crossings vary in size, but they typically involved small groups of Ukrainian soldiers using speedboats to discretely cross the river and execute their missions quickly before returning across to Ukrainian-controlled territory.</p> + +<p>It is possible that Ukraine plans to establish and sustain bridgeheads across the river from which to launch larger military operations in the near future. Ukrainian military leaders stated their intent to set the conditions for future larger crossings, including by destroying Russian artillery that could target large river-crossing forces and clearing mines that could slow landing forces. However, even with proper preparation, amphibious assaults are one of the most complex and demanding operations a military can attempt. Any attempt to cross the Dnipro with a large number of forces would likely be discovered and contested by Russian forces in the first line of fortifications that spans from the Dnipro Delta across from the city of Kherson and up the Dnipro River northward. Moreover, even a successful crossing would require complicated logistical support and need to overcome a large number of fieldworks Russia has constructed along the major roads in the region, as shown in Figure 6. For now, Ukraine more likely intends its attacks to fix Russian forces in Kherson, preventing them from redeploying to the southern or eastern fronts.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/D7YOsMd.png" alt="image06" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 6: Russian Fortifications on the Dnipro Front.</strong> Source: Africk, “Pre-2022 Field Fortifications in Russian-Occupied Ukraine.”</em></p> + +<p>Beyond the Frontlines: In addition to the fighting on the three fronts, the war has been marked in recent months by intensified missile barrages and escalating naval engagements. Since May, Russia has renewed its long-range UAS and missile attacks in Ukraine. Targets include a mix of critical infrastructure, command and control installations, and other military and civilian targets throughout Ukraine. For its part, Ukraine continues to conduct missile and UAS strikes against Russian military assets, headquarters, and strategic infrastructure in occupied territory. Ukraine has also conducted UAS attacks inside Russia. These attacks have been concentrated in the Bryansk and Belgorod regions near the western border with Ukraine, in Crimea, and in Moscow. On July 30, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that Russian territory was fair game: “Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair process.”</p> + +<p>With the termination of a grain export deal in mid-July, tensions escalated in the Black Sea region. Ukraine struck Russian targets — including diesel-electric submarines, air defense systems, amphibious landing ships, radar installations, and infrastructure, such as dry docks — in and around Crimea using UK-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles, UASs, special operations forces, and other weapons systems and forces. On July 17, Ukrainian UASs damaged the Kerch Strait Bridge used by Russia to move supplies and troops into Crimea. On August 24, Ukrainian special operation forces also reportedly conducted a nighttime raid against Russian positions in Crimea. In response to Ukrainian attacks, Russia withdrew the bulk of its Black Sea Fleet, such as attack submarines and frigates, from Sevastopol to other ports in Russia and Crimea.</p> + +<p>Over the summer, Russia also conducted a series of attacks against Ukrainian Danube ports that serve as hubs for the export of grain and other food commodities. According to Romanian officials, Russian UASs were flown near and occasionally inside Romanian air space to strike Ukrainian ports, such as Izmail and Reni, just a few hundred yards from Romanian territory. On several occasions, Romanian officials collected fragments from Russian UASs inside of Romanian territory.</p> + +<h3 id="debating-battlefield-performance">Debating Battlefield Performance</h3> + +<p>Battlefield success hinges on a complex interaction of several factors, including force employment, strategy, technology, leadership, weather, and combat motivation. While Ukraine retains the initiative in the war, Ukraine’s military advance has been relatively slow. Why? This section examines four possible hypotheses: Ukrainian strategy, Russian defenses, Ukrainian technology, and Ukrainian force employment.</p> + +<p>Ukrainian Strategy: Some policymakers and analysts contend that poor Ukrainian strategy contributed to the slow pace of Ukrainian operations, though there is little evidence to support this argument. According to proponents, the Ukrainian military focused too much on conducting operations along multiple fronts, rather than concentrating forces on a single front in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The military objective in the south — and indeed a major objective of Ukrainian military operations more broadly — appeared to be pushing south to the Sea of Azov, cutting Russian occupation forces in two, severing the land corridor between Russia and occupied Crimea, and retaking such cities as Melitopol.</p> + +<p>Instead of focusing on a southeast axis, however, Ukrainian commanders divided troops and firepower between the east and the south. Some U.S. military officials advised Ukraine to concentrate its forces in the south and drive toward Melitopol to punch through Russian defenses. Likewise, some criticized the Ukrainian military for moving forward on multiple axes within Zaporizhzhia Oblast itself rather than focusing on one main axis. The argument about how and where Ukraine should concentrate its offensive efforts is, in part, a debate about force ratios. Proponents of focusing solely on the south argue that massing Ukrainian forces along a single axis in Zaporizhzhia would have allowed Ukraine to achieve the favorable force ratio necessary to generate a significant breakthrough.</p> + +<p>But this argument is unpersuasive for at least two reasons. First, Russian military leaders came to the same conclusion and prepared accordingly. They anticipated that Ukrainian forces would likely focus on the southern front and sent forces to fortify Melitopol and Tokmak, as well as other areas in Zaporizhzhia. Second, well-designed mechanized campaigns almost always progress on multiple axes, not just one. Advancing along a single axis allows the defender to fully concentrate on stopping that advance. In this case, the Russians would almost certainly have moved forces from other parts of the theater as rapidly as possible to stop the Ukrainian drive toward Melitopol. Instead, Ukrainian advances in Bakhmut and other eastern areas pinned down Russian forces since Russia was not prepared to lose Bakhmut.</p> + +<p>Actual force ratios across the long front lines in Ukraine are impossible to determine using open sources, but there is little reason to believe that Ukraine’s multifront approach was a mistake. To achieve favorable force ratios despite its smaller military, Ukraine would have had to move forces to the decisive point before the Russian defenders could react and surge their own forces to that area. But Russia anticipated that Ukraine would attack in Zaporizhzhia, prepared its most extensive networks of fortifications in the region as shown in Figure 7, and almost certainly planned to redeploy forces to reinforce against a Ukrainian advance there.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/egsJsi1.png" alt="image07" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 7: Construction of Russian Fortifications between February 2022 and August 2023.</strong> Source: Africk, “Russian Field Fortifications in Ukraine.”</em></p> + +<p>As a result, Ukraine likely could not have achieved more favorable force ratios even by massing its forces along one or two axes in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. While a more favorable force ratio is always desirable, evidence suggests that a higher concentration of Ukraine’s efforts along the southern front likely would have been met by a higher concentration of Russian forces in heavily fortified terrain.</p> + +<p>Russian Defenses: Another possible explanation for Ukraine’s limited progress is that Russian forces constructed and used defensive fortifications effectively. There is some evidence to support this argument. In advance of Ukraine’s offensive, Russia built the most extensive defensive works in Europe since World War II, with expansive fortifications in eastern and southern Ukraine. These defenses consist of a network of trenches, anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines, razor wire, earthen berms, and dragon’s teeth, as shown in Figure 8.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/KjbEH5h.png" alt="image08" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 8: Multilayered Defenses North of Mykhailivka, Ukraine.</strong></em></p> + +<p>Ukraine’s slow advance can be attributed, in part, to Russia’s successes using fortifications to defend against Ukrainian assaults. Across the entire front, Russian troops primarily fought from infantry trench systems. Russian forces in some areas, such as the 7th Guards Air Assault Division, were so thoroughly dug in that Ukrainian forces discovered carpets and pictures on the walls of captured Russian positions.</p> + +<p>Russia employed a variety of fortifications to slow the advance of Ukrainian vehicles. However, not all fortifications are created equal. One former Ukrainian commander belittled the effectiveness of Russian dragon’s teeth defenses in September 2023. Based on satellite imagery and other information, CSIS analysis in June 2023 similarly questioned the potential effectiveness of Russia’s dragon’s teeth given the varied quality in their installation and make.</p> + +<p>But Russia’s extensive use of mines effectively slowed Ukrainian advances. Ukraine is now the most mined country in the world after Russia expanded the size of minefields from 120 meters to 500 meters. The increased size and frequency of minefields complicated Ukrainian planning and limited the effectiveness of Ukraine’s equipment. For example, when the Ukrainian 47th Assault Brigade and 33rd Mechanized Brigade attempted to cross a minefield north of Robotyne on June 8, 2023, mine-clearing efforts were insufficient. Slowed or disabled by mines, Ukrainian vehicles came under fire from Russian attack helicopters, and Ukrainian soldiers were forced to abandon their equipment and retreat. The incident reportedly resulted in the loss or abandonment of at least 25 tanks and fighting vehicles, although some were later recovered. Drone footage and satellite imagery show a cluster of 11 vehicles damaged and abandoned in one location from the failed advance, as shown in Figure 9.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/dWgSVRu.png" alt="image09" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 9: Damaged and Abandoned Vehicle from an Attempted Ukrainian Advance North of Robotyne, June 2023.</strong> Source: Screenshot of video release by the Russian Ministry of Defense.</em></p> + +<p>Minefields disrupted Ukraine’s offensive momentum and imposed constraints on Ukraine’s rate of advance. Russian minelaying increased the demand on Ukrainian reconnaissance and engineers and complicates military planning. As a result, Ukrainian operations in mined areas had to be slow and deliberate or risk trapping equipment and personnel on exposed ground.</p> + +<p>The terrain in Ukraine increased the effectiveness of Russian defenses. Rows of flat, open farm fields separated by tree lines characterize the southern front. Without air superiority, Ukrainian ground forces had to advance by crossing these fields with little natural cover to conceal their movement. In addition to laying mines, Russia targeted advancing Ukrainian troops and vehicles with artillery fire, attack helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft. Using thick summer foliage to their advantage, Russia concealed tanks, anti-tank units, and infantry units in the tree lines that border the fields to ambush Ukrainian forces.</p> + +<p>In urban areas, Russia used infrastructure to its advantage. Buildings and other structures provide cover to defending forces and enable ambushes. Russia also methodically destroyed roads and created obstacles in urban areas to disrupt the advance of Ukrainian vehicles and channel them into dangerous areas. For example, a Ukrainian assault in late July on the town of Staromaiorske along the southern front was reportedly slowed by a combination of such defenses.</p> + +<p>Ukraine’s advance was further complicated by the proliferation of sensors and rapid precision strike capabilities on the battlefield, especially long-range precision fires and UASs. Russia deployed significant numbers of small UASs in contested areas, and some Ukrainian sources reported losing 10,000 UASs every month, which demonstrated the sheer number of these systems being employed on the battlefield. The ubiquity of these systems makes it impossible to establish that sensor saturation and advanced strike capabilities provide a distinct defensive advantage, but there are good reasons to believe this is the case. Sensor saturation creates a “transparent battlefield” in which forces can be found and targeted more easily than in past decades.</p> + +<p>The advancement of precision fires and the proliferation of lethal UASs shorten the time it takes to strike enemy forces once they are located. In many cases, a UAS may act as both the sensor and the strike capability. Loitering munitions, for example, can circle battlefields until a target is acquired and approved for an immediate strike. On a transparent battlefield onto which an adversary can rapidly strike detected forces, attackers must distribute further, move more deliberately, make greater use of cover, and more tightly coordinate movement with suppressive fire in order to survive their advance. In contrast, defenders can take advantage of prepared fighting positions that are less exposed both to enemy detection and enemy fire.</p> -<p>For Israel, tactical options are constrained by a range of additional factors. Iron Dome – the air defence system protecting Israeli cities from rocket attack – has a finite number of interceptors. Given the massive threat if Hizbullah joins the fray, Israel is keen to limit its expenditure of interceptors by interdicting left of launch. The threat of escalation with Hizbullah also means that Israel feels it necessary to preserve combat power. Both factors lead to an approach to Gaza that is fast and favours firepower. This weights the judgement as to military necessity.</p> +<p>Ukrainian Technology: A third possibility is that offense was weakened by insufficient technology, especially weapons systems that would facilitate a breakthrough. There is some evidence to support this argument. Ukraine received significant military assistance from the West, which aided combat operations. Examples include artillery, main battle tanks, armored carriers, ground support vehicles, air defense systems, air-to-ground missiles, manned aircraft, UASs, coastal defense systems, and radar and communications. U.S.-supplied cluster munitions, which can cause devastation over a broader area than ordinary shells, were also helpful for Ukrainian forces. Ukraine used cluster munitions to target Russian troops running across open ground, either to flee or to provide reinforcements. However, Ukraine’s lack of fighter aircraft, disadvantage in fires, and limited enablers made it more difficult to break through Russian lines.</p> -<p>In the absence of tools and methods for fighting among the people, advertising intent and clear avenues for civilians to vacate the battlespace is a viable alternative. This is what Israel has done by instructing civilians to move South of the Gaza River, while indicating the routes and times where movement will not be interdicted. The proposed timeframe for evacuation was short, although it has now been extended by delays to the ground operation.</p> +<p>Ukrainian Force Employment: Some have argued that the speed of Ukrainian advances was impacted by its military doctrine and tactical implementation, a combination known as “force employment.” There is some evidence to support this argument.</p> -<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">A policy to permanently drive Palestinians from Gaza would amount to ethnic cleansing and a war crime</code></em></strong></p> +<p>Choices in how militaries use the soldiers and equipment at their disposal can permit attackers to advance despite the extreme lethality of defenders’ firepower or permit defenders to limit the gains of numerically overwhelming attackers. Effective force employment requires tight coordination between infantry, armor, artillery, and airpower at several organizational levels, as well as high levels of autonomy, initiative, and tactical prowess at lower echelons.</p> -<p>Despite these measures, many civilians – as always in these cases – will choose to stay. Furthermore, in this specific context, many Palestinians fear that Israel is not trying to move them to a safe place, but instead trying to get them to vacate land which will be occupied and eventually settled. Palestinians fear that they will not be allowed to return. This is not the stated policy of the Israeli government. However, given Israel’s past conduct and the statements of several of its current ministers, this fear is understandable. It is also important to note that Israel has a history of valid tactical military justifications being instrumentalised by a minority within its cabinet to radically reshape its policy over time. This is how Operation Peace for Galilee in 1982, authorised by the Israeli cabinet to secure its northern border, was morphed in stages by Defence Minister Ariel Sharon into a siege of Beirut.</p> +<p>Ukraine changed how it used its forces to reduce its losses while accepting an advance rate much slower than its leaders may have initially desired. There is little doubt that Ukraine’s initial force employment resulted in high rates of attrition. But it remains unclear why Ukraine’s initial force employment resulted in such high losses without generating sizable advances. Training, force structure, organizational culture, or lack of airpower all may have played roles, and the interaction between Russian defenses and Zaporizhzhia’s terrain may have forestalled a mechanized breakthrough independent of those factors.</p> -<p>A policy to permanently drive Palestinians from Gaza would amount to ethnic cleansing and a war crime. It is therefore vital that, alongside support to Israel in defending itself, the international community is clear as to its expectations in confirming Israeli intent, and the consequences if that intent morphs into something illegal. One clear test is whether Israel will help to make the area to which people are evacuating safe by allowing food, medicine and clean water to be moved into southern Gaza.</p> +<p>While granular data on Ukraine’s force employment is scarce, open-source information suggests a shift in tactics after its unsuccessful first assaults. Accounts based on interviews with combatants suggest a change in how Ukraine coordinated its infantry, armor, and artillery. Ukrainian operations in June 2023 appear to have been organized around larger maneuver units than later Ukrainian operations in the summer, which employed smaller infantry units supported by artillery and small numbers of tanks. Analysis by the Royal United Services Institute demonstrates that Ukraine can effectively integrate multiple combat branches at lower echelons.</p> -<p>It is also clear, however, that the international community will lack any credibility or authority on the issue if it simply demands a return to the status-quo ante. For many Palestinians, the progressive erosion of their control of the West Bank was choking off any prospect of a path to peace. For Israelis, the massacre conducted by Hamas on 7 October fundamentally changed their calculus. For years, Israel has been fearful as Iran and Hizbullah have consolidated their hold on Lebanon and Syria, amassing an arsenal of sophisticated weapons. In combination with the training and support to Hamas and the infiltration of Judea and Samaria, the IDF had come to view the status quo – amid increasing US disengagement from the region – as similarly unsustainable.</p> +<p>Ukraine also emphasized destroying Russian artillery as part of its changing offensive strategy. Open-source data shows that Ukraine greatly increased its destruction of Russian artillery systems in late June and early July following its initial failures to advance, as shown in Figure 10. This is consistent with some reporting on Ukraine’s changed operational approach. This appears to mark a shift toward destroying enemy artillery before advancing and away from the combined arms approach of advancing while simultaneously suppressing the enemy using artillery fire.</p> -<p>The IDF’s assessment today is that if the threat is left to expand, it will eventually threaten the viability of the Israeli state. Thus, their objective in the current conflict is not to simply inflict a dose of pain on Hamas to deter further fighting, but to systematically destroy its military capacity to conduct operations and thereby write down one of the threats. This risks Hizbullah intervening. But given that the Israeli security state fears things getting worse over time, many in the security establishment feel that if a fight must happen, then they would rather have it today.</p> +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/iFDwnY8.png" alt="image10" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 10: GeoConfirmed Data on Rates of Destroyed Russian Artillery (June 2023–September 2023).</strong> Source: Data from <a href="https://geoconfirmed.azurewebsites.net/ukraine">“Ukraine,” GeoConfirmed.org, September 15, 2023</a>.</em></p> -<p>For the international community, therefore, while deterring a regional escalation should be an objective, a mere temporary “stability” is unlikely to look attractive to either side. If the international community wants long-term stability, it must be more proactively engaged in exploring a path to peace, rather than pursuing a systematic disengagement that simply cedes the region to Iran, which has characterised Washington’s approach for the last three years. There may emerge, from the ashes of this unfolding tragedy, an opportunity to build a new road to peace, just as there is the risk that the flames will engulf what remains of a rules-based international system that so many words have been pledged to defend.</p> +<p>These changes were associated with a significant decrease in Ukrainian losses. U.S. and European officials reported that Ukraine lost as much as 20 percent of the weapons sent to the battlefield in the first two weeks of the offensive, a rate that prompted Ukrainian commanders to reevaluate their tactics. After adopting an operational approach centered around small-unit probes and attrition by artillery and UAS strikes, Ukrainian equipment loss rates were cut in half, with approximately 10 percent of equipment lost in the next phase of operations. In a war of attrition, such a decrease in loss rates was probably seen by Ukrainians as worth the slow pace of advance.</p> -<hr /> +<p>The key question of whether Ukraine’s initial mechanized assaults would have succeeded if executed with greater skill is unanswerable, despite remarks made by some military officials, political figures, and security analysts. Effective coordination between branches of arms might have allowed Ukraine to break through Russian lines. It is also plausible that Ukraine’s lack of air superiority on a sensor-saturated battlefield would have limited the benefits of such coordination. Previous analysis of World War II breakthroughs suggests that skillful implementation of combined arms tactics have mattered for successful offensive operations, but also that preponderance of firepower, operational maneuverability, speed, surprise, and air dominance have also influenced the likelihood of a breakthrough and exploitation. There is little reason to believe that more effective combined arms tactics would have been sufficient to achieve the breakthrough that Ukraine and its backers initially hoped for in the summer of 2023 without the advantages of surprise and air superiority.</p> -<p><strong>Jack Watling</strong> is Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute. Jack works closely with the British military on the development of concepts of operation, assessments of the future operating environment, and conducts operational analysis of contemporary conflicts.</p>Jack WatlingThe legal and ethical challenges of operating in densely populated areas are going to be a tragic constant of 21st century warfare, with no easy solutions.Change Or False Alarm?2023-10-13T12:00:00+08:002023-10-13T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/change-or-false-alarm<p><em>A potential shift in China’s approach to nuclear weapons could indicate that it is taking a page from Moscow’s book.</em></p> +<h3 id="policy-implications">Policy Implications</h3> -<excerpt /> +<p>Opposition to providing further aid to Ukraine is building among some members of U.S. Congress, as highlighted in the September 2023 stopgap spending bill that did not include additional money for Ukraine. Some argue that the United States should concentrate exclusively on countering China in the Indo-Pacific and defending Taiwan. These officials contend that U.S. resources are finite, that weapons exports to Ukraine come at Taiwan’s expense, and that sustained focus on war in Europe benefits China. Some also argue that the United States should prioritize aid to Israel over Ukraine. Others maintain that every dollar spent on Ukraine is a waste of taxpayer money that could be better used on domestic priorities, such as improving healthcare, cracking down on illegal immigration, or combating the spread of fentanyl.</p> -<p>China recently released its proposal for a new global order: “Proposal of the People’s Republic of China on the Reform and Development of Global Governance”. The blueprint repeats several earlier talking points on how China aims to change the global order. The pillars of the new order lean heavily on Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative, Global Development Initiative, and Global Civilisation Initiative. As an unprecedently open step towards a global order that mirrors the governance of a one-party state, the proposal deserves in-depth analysis beyond the scope of this article. A significant issue examined here is China dropping its long-term No First Use of nuclear weapons policy from the proposal; this raises eyebrows as global security risks intensify with a protracted Russian war of aggression against Ukraine (where China is siding with Russia), along with China’s aggressive behaviour around Taiwan.</p> +<p>But these arguments are misguided. Continuing aid to Ukraine is essential to prevent authoritarian leaders, such as Vladimir Putin, from achieving their revanchist aims. In fact, Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran have deepened their military, economic, and diplomatic ties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.</p> -<p>China officially became the world’s fifth nuclear weapon-possessing state in 1964 and was then recognised under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). For decades, China carefully advanced its nuclear arsenal to maintain its minimum deterrent strategy. However, in recent years, China has clearly abandoned this strategy, heavily increasing its count of nuclear weapons and becoming the world’s third-largest nuclear weapons power. The Pentagon has estimated that if the current trajectory continues, China could field approximately 1,500 warheads by 2035.</p> +<p>U.S. allies and enemies alike see Ukraine as a test of Western resolve. The Ukrainian military still has the initiative in the war and continues to advance forward. Ukraine’s supporters can meaningfully impact two of the factors outlined in the previous section: Ukrainian force employment and technology. The fundamental challenge is that both take time. A war that continues to favor the defense is also likely to be protracted, since Ukrainian advances will likely continue to be slow.</p> -<p>In August 2023, at the NPT Review Conference, the Director-General of the Department of Arms Control of the Foreign Ministry of China, Sun Xiaobo, reaffirmed China’s 1964 policy “not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances” and “not to threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states”.</p> +<p>The United States and its Western allies need to be prepared to support a long war and to develop a long-term aid plan. They have already provided extensive training and intelligence to improve Ukraine’s force employment, including combined arms maneuver, air defense, special operations activities, intelligence, and the operation and maintenance of more than 20 military systems. This support needs to continue and adapt as the war evolves.</p> -<p>Nonetheless, a month later, China’s proposal for global governance seems to have dropped this decades-old policy. Up until August 2023, China had repeatedly reaffirmed its No First Use policy from 1964 onwards, although on some occasions Beijing has stretched it to exclude other nuclear powers, especially the US. The dual pledges of No First Use and No Threatening to Use nuclear weapons have long been cornerstones of China’s nuclear strategy. The fact that China’s proposal on global governance omits these commitments – while otherwise expressing China’s positions in a detailed manner – could indicate a change in China’s position on nuclear weapons, especially because China has never previously wavered or appeared ambiguous about these commitments.</p> +<p>In addition, Ukraine needs more and better technology in two respects. The first is long-term assistance that will help Ukraine strengthen its defense and prevent or deter a Russian counterattack in the future. Examples include mines, anti-tank guided missiles, air defense systems, stockpiles of munitions, counter-UAS systems, and area-effect weapons, such as artillery.</p> -<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">China may have learned from Moscow’s capitalisation on European fear regarding Russian nuclear weapons use</code></em></strong></p> +<p>The second type of assistance is aid that helps Ukraine on offense in the current campaign and maximizes the possibility that it can break through well-fortified areas and retake as much territory as possible from Russia. Examples include a steady supply of munitions; attack aircraft, such as F-16s; long-range missiles, such as MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS); and UASs that can conduct intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and strike missions.</p> -<p>China’s ultimate aim in its 1964 policy on the use of nuclear arms was “to deter others from using or threatening to use” nuclear weapons against China. Could dropping this from an important policy document simply be a mistake, or is this a deliberate new shift in policy, perhaps based on Xi Jinping’s analyses of “changes not seen in a hundred years”, or influenced by Russia’s threatening rhetoric directed at NATO allies regarding nuclear weapons?</p> +<p>Based on current trends, continuing aid to Ukraine may cost roughly $14.5 billion per year. Figure 11 highlights what this might look like through the end of 2024. This aid has a highly favorable risk-reward ratio. One of the United States’ most significant adversaries, Russia, is suffering extraordinary attrition. As many 120,000 Russian soldiers have died, and perhaps three times that number have been wounded, along with several dozen Russian general officers. Ukrainian soldiers have destroyed substantial numbers of Russian military equipment, such as main battle tanks, armored and infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, artillery, surface-to-air missile systems, fighter aircraft, helicopters, UASs, submarines, landing ships, and a guided missile cruiser. And the United States has lost zero soldiers in the war.</p> -<p>While China’s proposal for global governance demands that the international community oppose the threat or use of nuclear weapons, China appears to have excluded its unilateral pledge to do so. Beyond this, China’s tacit support for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine has cemented talking points on “invisible security” and how countries’ national security should not threaten that of others. China sees this as the root cause of the war in Ukraine. In Beijing’s view, “the crisis” – China still refuses to call the war anything else – stems from a flawed, unbalanced European security architecture, where other parties’ security concerns are ignored. In this context, multiple Chinese researchers have sided with Russia. Furthermore, following Finland’s NATO accession, a number of Chinese researchers took the view that since Russia could not match NATO’s conventional deterrence, Russia had no other option but to increase its nuclear arsenal.</p> +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/1WiLk6R.png" alt="image11" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 11: U.S. Presidential Drawdowns for Ukraine (February 2022–September 2023) and Projected Drawdown Amounts (September 2023–December 2024).</strong> Source: <a href="https://comptroller.defense.gov/Budget-Execution/pda_announcements/">“Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) Announcements,” Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller)/CFO, Accessed September 21, 2023</a>.</em></p> -<p>The consequences of China abandoning its No First Use/No Threatening to Use policy are minor at most; China has in any case refused to engage in any arms-control dialogue with the US. Thus, its policy promises have often been taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, two immediate implications of China’s potential new approach still come to mind. First, China’s quick nuclear build-up means that the US will face two nuclear-armed powers, China and Russia, working together as its adversaries. Second, China may have learned from Moscow’s capitalisation on European fear regarding Russian nuclear weapons in order to, at a minimum, delay help for Ukraine. Similarly, triggering fear by threatening the use of nuclear weapons could rein in Japan’s and other US allies’ willingness to defend Taiwan, if the People’s Liberation Army tries to take the island by force.</p> +<p>The war is now, in part, a contest between the defense industrial bases of the two sides: Russia and its partners, such as China and Iran; and Ukraine and its partners, including the United States and other Western countries. A decision by the United States to significantly reduce military aid would shift the military balance-of-power in favor of Russia and increase the possibility that Russia will ultimately win the war by seizing additional Ukrainian territory in a grinding war of attrition. Too much is at stake. As UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher said to President George H.W. Bush in the leadup to the First Gulf War, after Iraq had invaded Kuwait, “This is no time to go wobbly.”</p> <hr /> -<p><strong>Sari Arho Havrén</strong> is a RUSI Associate Fellow based in Brussels. She specialises in China’s foreign relations, China foresight, and in great power competition. She is also a visiting scholar at the University of Helsinki.</p>Sari Arho HavrénA potential shift in China’s approach to nuclear weapons could indicate that it is taking a page from Moscow’s book.Integrate Offence And Defence2023-10-11T12:00:00+08:002023-10-11T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/integrate-offence-and-defence<p><em>This article articulates pathways forward in a future operating environment dominated by stalemates and threats to national homelands.</em></p> +<p><strong>Seth G. Jones</strong> is senior vice president, Harold Brown Chair, and director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.</p> + +<p><strong>Riley McCabe</strong> is a program coordinator and research assistant with the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS.</p> + +<p><strong>Alexander Palmer</strong> is a research associate with the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS.</p>Seth G. Jones, et al.Ukrainian forces retain the initiative in the war but advanced an average of only 90 meters per day on the southern front during the peak of their summer offensive, according to new CSIS analysis.Integrate Offence And Defence2023-10-11T12:00:00+08:002023-10-11T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/integrate-offence-and-defence<p><em>This article articulates pathways forward in a future operating environment dominated by stalemates and threats to national homelands.</em></p> <excerpt /> @@ -9151,446 +9760,4 @@ <p><strong>Ángeles Zúñiga</strong>, Former Research Intern, CSIS Project on Fragility and Mobility</p> -<p><strong>Erol Yayboke</strong>, Former Director, CSIS Project on Fragility and Mobility</p>Abigail Edwards, et al.When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it sparked the largest and quickest mass displacement of people since the Second World War.Intel. Contest In Cyberspace2023-08-23T12:00:00+08:002023-08-23T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/intelligence-contest-in-cyberspace<p><em>There has been growing pushback from experts and scholars to the concept of “cyber war”, with some suggesting that a more sober way of assessing cyber operations is to see them as part of a wider “intelligence contest” – a term proposed by some scholars to describe strategic competition in cyberspace as a duel between actors to gather data, undermine adversary institutions and sabotage capabilities.</em> <excerpt></excerpt> <em>It is worth noting this definition of “intelligence” is contentious in some quarters, with others preferring the more limited description of intelligence as relating to the collection and analysis of information.</em></p> - -<p>In terms of cyber war hyperbole, unhelpful headlines such as Newsweek’s “The Rising Risk of a Cyber Pearl Harbour” in 2021 usually grab the everyday reader’s attention but limit our understanding of the far more important dimension of these cyber incidents: how states and non-state actors use cyberspace below the threshold of war to further their strategic objectives.</p> - -<p>Even when scrolling down The New York Times’s tag on “cyberwarfare”, most of the reporting concentrates on espionage and activities such as information operations and subversion – which in practice, is a more accurate reflection of what goes on in cyberspace.</p> - -<p>However, the jury is still out on alternative concepts to “cyber war” that can appropriately capture the effects of cyber operations below the threshold of armed conflict and how they might transform intelligence activities. The book Deter, Disrupt or Deceive: Assessing Cyber Conflict as an Intelligence Contest offers some options – although it does not seek to be conclusive.</p> - -<p>To what extent is it worth considering that states are actually involved in a continuous “intelligence contest” in cyberspace?</p> - -<h3 id="its-a-trap-reassessing-the-vocabulary">It’s a Trap! Reassessing the Vocabulary</h3> - -<p>As the ongoing war in Ukraine has illustrated, the obsession with the concept of “cyber war” is not just about the latest news headlines; rather, it has resulted in deep miscalculations about the role of cyber operations in conflict and crisis scenarios.</p> - -<p>The first miscalculation from the hyperbole around “cyber war” is the heightened expectations of what cyber operations can and should deliver. Having been known for numerous disruptive cyber incidents, Russia’s cyber operations at the outbreak of the war in Ukraine were commonly depicted as contrary to expectations. There was no widespread or particularly significant impact from Russian destructive cyber operations, no cyber takedown of Ukrainian critical national infrastructure.</p> - -<p>This exemplifies how “cyber war” can also fail to grasp how effects are shaped by a culture of strategic doctrine – as is particularly the case with Russia’s conceptualisation of cyber operations.</p> - -<p>However, the focus on decisive and short-term effects of cyber operations, especially in conflict situations, has also led to a paradoxical dismissal of the cumulative effects that operations have as part of a wider contest between state and non-state actors. Russian cyber activity during the war has still revealed a largely unprecedented deployment of capabilities, with at least nine new wiper malware families, two ransomware attacks and the targeting of 100 organisations in Ukraine. According to companies such as ESET, Microsoft, Mandiant and other large threat intelligence companies, Russia has used a record amount of data-destroying malware on Ukraine, showcasing an accelerated pace of deployment of cyber capabilities in conflict scenarios. This in turn has also contributed to the reuse of many of these capabilities in at least other 25 countries, which showcases the cascading effects of sub-threshold capabilities. Despite these numbers – and within this particular context – cyber operations have not been the decisive or primary tool in the conflict. They have, however, contributed to the broader friction of war – be it in the operation of infrastructure, communication or leveraging the information space to push their narratives about the war.</p> - -<h3 id="on-intelligence-contests">On Intelligence Contests</h3> - -<p>American University Professor Joshua Rovner suggests that activities in cyberspace are more about intelligence than the use of force. He argues that strategic behaviour in cyberspace will rarely surpass the threshold of armed conflict, but states will continuously engage in an “intelligence contest” through sabotage and covert action. Rovner defines the intelligence contest as:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>A race among adversaries to collect more and better information.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>A race to exploit information to improve one’s relative position.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>A reciprocal effort to covertly undermine adversary morale, institutions and alliances.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>A contest to disable adversary capabilities through sabotage.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>A campaign to preposition assets for intelligence collection in the event of a conflict.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">Countries recognise the importance of having an institution to engage in cyber operations – but it does not mean that all do so</code></em></strong></p> - -<p>What the concept seeks to illustrate is that the dynamics of contestation among states in cyberspace extend far beyond the tactics of cyber operations and the battlefield itself, and play into strategic competition among state and non-state actors. As noted by the UK’s National Cyber Force (NCF), while cyber operations are not expected to be strategically decisive, they are effective when “combined and co-ordinated with the activities of partners to achieve a shared goal”.</p> - -<p>This applies as much to cyber security as it does to offensive cyber. One example of the former is that in May 2023, Ukraine, Ireland, Iceland and Japan announced that they would officially join NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence. While the deal opens the door for greater exchange between NATO and non-NATO countries, the occasion sends a relevant message of expanding technical and strategic alignment between countries in the face of growing geopolitical contestation in the Indo-Pacific and amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.</p> - -<p>Offensive cyber capabilities should be seen as part of a much wider policy toolkit to respond to hostile activities in cyberspace. Likewise, offensive cyber capabilities can be used to respond to other threats such as terrorism, disinformation or child sexual exploitation. In short, a cyber incident does not necessarily merit a cyber response.</p> - -<p>As of 2021, approximately 45 countries have launched military cyber organisations (that is, cyber commands) and nearly 35 of those possess an offensive mandate. While capacities and capabilities vary, both Western and non-Western countries recognise the importance of having an institution to engage in this contested environment – but it does not mean that all do so.</p> - -<p>Strategies vary as to how countries engage in this contest. The US Cyber Command, which defends the Department of Defense’s information systems, supports joint force commanders with cyberspace operations, and defends the US from significant cyberattacks, has developed complementary concepts of “defend forward” and “persistent engagement”. Meanwhile, the UK’s NCF has published a document outlining operating principles for its own approach to offensive cyber which is in line with a broader vision outlined in the 2023 Integrated Review Refresh to deter, defend and compete across all domains. Central to the NCF’s approach is the doctrine of “cognitive effect”.</p> - -<p>So, should we then consider “intelligence contest” as the most accurate means of defining the nature of cyber operations?</p> - -<p>Critics of the concept have argued that the scale and scope of operations in cyberspace fundamentally change the nature of intelligence (especially covert action), resulting in a “difference in kind and not merely degree”. As some have argued, the 2016 Russian interference during the US elections shows that smaller activities can result in aggregated strategic effects – eroding trust and confidence in society. So, what are the consequences of framing cyber operations as an intelligence contest?</p> - -<h3 id="responsible-cyber-operations--long-road-ahead">Responsible Cyber Operations – Long Road Ahead</h3> - -<p>One risk when intelligence becomes the main qualifier to describe the nature of cyber operations is that it could alter public perceptions on what activities their government is conducting in cyberspace. Public understanding may also differ depending upon the oversight mechanisms in place within a particular national context. The outcome of framing cyber operations around intelligence activities could be for better or worse, depending upon the national context.</p> - -<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">Cyber might play a significantly different role depending on the respective country’s primary threat concern</code></em></strong></p> - -<p>For example, the UK has a detailed regulatory framework when it comes to intelligence activity. In addition, the NCF’s recent guide outlines the importance of robust oversight and accountability as a core element for responsible operational planning – a key part of our latest project at RUSI.</p> - -<p>In some cases, less capable states contract cyber mercenaries for easier access to opportunities in developing and deploying capabilities. While commercial hacking tools have legitimate applications in support of national security and law enforcement objectives, they are also subject to misuse and abuse. As of 2023, 74 countries have reportedly used spyware and between 2015 and 2017, and EU member states have allowed surveillance technology to be exported more than 317 times. It is not always the case that states will contract well-known spyware vendors either – there is a complex market of companies promoting open-source intelligence tools that can be coupled with other sophisticated add-ons and services. In this regard, the intelligence contest concept does not help with addressing these kinds of dynamics. Instead of clarifying what kinds of intelligence activities are permissible, it overemphasises state-to-state spying rather than domestic activities – usually more appealing to less developed economies that can buy off-the-shelf products to meet their internal needs. What is then the applicability of the intelligence contest? To whom does this concept apply?</p> - -<p>It is important to understand the motivations of countries beyond the usual cyber powers in developing and deploying cyber capabilities. As illustrated by Saudi Arabia, Mexico, India and many other Western and non-Western countries, it might be more profitable for countries to develop their own cyber capabilities to conduct surveillance of citizens within their own national territory and abroad than to primarily do it among states. As states across the development spectrum enhance their capabilities, cyber might play a significantly different role depending on the respective country’s primary threat concern – which in turn will also affect how they engage in strategic competition.</p> - -<p>Countries might also be influenced by the NCF’s guide on cyber operations, as it provides some initial thoughts for establishing processes and guidance relating to cyber operations. However, there is a risk that some countries will see cyber operations as intelligence activity only, to be conducted against a foreign or external threat. A different and more worrying scenario takes place when countries seek to aggressively use capabilities against internal threats, with little oversight, as has been the case with commercial hacking tools.</p> - -<h3 id="a-contest-for-a-few">A Contest for a Few?</h3> - -<p>A crucial and yet overlooked question within this debate is: “who can engage in this intelligence contest?” While many countries have developed cyber commands and have sought to enhance their capabilities, the intelligence contest still arguably remains a game to be played by a small group of countries.</p> - -<p>It might be too much to assume that countries beyond the pool of cyber powers can effectively achieve significant cumulative effects through cyberspace in conjunction with other diplomatic and/or commercial strategies, despite their eagerness to outsource capabilities.</p> - -<p>In addition, the 45 countries that have established military cyber organisations (and others) will continue to search for other levers to develop their own capacities, away from cyber. It is also questionable how applicable and operationalisable the intelligence contest in cyberspace is for developing countries.</p> - -<p>Overall, how the term “intelligence contest” increases the understanding of cyber operations remains unclear. There are geographical, capability and conceptual challenges as well as consequences of the framing that require further assessment. Regardless, it is better than using the term “cyber war” to define state activity in cyberspace – although whether that is enough is yet to be seen.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><strong>Louise Marie Hurel</strong> is a Research Fellow in the Cyber team at RUSI. Her research interests include incident response, cyber capacity building, cyber diplomacy and non-governmental actors’ engagement in cyber security.</p>Louise Marie HurelThere has been growing pushback from experts and scholars to the concept of “cyber war”, with some suggesting that a more sober way of assessing cyber operations is to see them as part of a wider “intelligence contest” – a term proposed by some scholars to describe strategic competition in cyberspace as a duel between actors to gather data, undermine adversary institutions and sabotage capabilities.Find Safe Harbors2023-08-23T12:00:00+08:002023-08-23T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/find-safe-harbors<p><em>As intense geostrategic rivalry becomes an enduring feature of the U.S.-China relationship, this essay argues that game-changing opportunities for social impact across health, climate change, and food security are within reach — but will depend on new mechanisms and narratives that enable collaborations between partners in the United States and China to proceed in smart, informed, and geopolitically sensitive ways.</em></p> - -<excerpt /> - -<h3 id="a-legacy-of-collaboration-at-risk">A Legacy of Collaboration at Risk</h3> - -<p>In West Africa, a new breed of rice that can withstand flooding and drought has allowed farmers to triple their productivity, improving local economies and feeding thousands of people. In regions from South America to Scotland, new green technologies are generating an abundance of clean energy. And in Southeast Asia, hundreds of millions of children have been protected from deadly Japanese encephalitis through life-saving vaccines.</p> - -<p>Each of these projects is contributing significantly to the collective future of humans and the planet. And all of them hinge on partnerships in health, technology, and business between the United States and its greatest strategic rival: China.</p> - -<p>Take the Green Super Rice feeding thousands in West Africa, for example. It leverages 40 years of Chinese research on rice seeds accelerated with the financial muscle of U.S. philanthropy. Meanwhile, China’s ability to develop and produce low-cost vaccines — for safeguarding the health of its own enormous population as well as supporting millions in the Global South — has been bolstered by know-how and support from the West, particularly through global health research collaborations, assistance with regulatory reforms, and the navigation of global qualification and distribution channels.</p> - -<p>These examples, but a tiny sample of social impact collaborations underway around the world, remind us that endeavors advancing human health and development often fall beyond the purview of any single country; multinational and multisectoral partnerships are increasingly required. Specifically, they underscore the importance of continued engagement by two of the world’s greatest economic and technological powers, as well as the need to find ways to continue such collaborations in smart, informed, geopolitically sensitive, and mutually beneficial models. Truly game-changing innovations and opportunities with great social impact are within reach; and yet, many will depend on initiating, continuing, or expanding collaborations between partners in the United States and China to augment the global public good.</p> - -<p>However, this reality sits alongside stark and uncontestable truths: that the relationship between the United States and China over the past 10 years has worsened to one of its lowest historical ebbs, that policy and national sentiment have negatively reshaped the countries’ perceptions of — and working exchanges with — each other, and that we are in an era of aggressive competition that threatens progress in some of this work. As the trajectory of this new great power competition continues to play out, what will happen to the substantial historical legacy of partnership between these two nations on issues of critical social impact? Will it be possible for would-be collaborators on either side of the Pacific to navigate these rocky waters without being immobilized by political risk, thwarted by sanctions, or hamstrung by the potential for reputational damage?</p> - -<p>The stakes are high. Between global climate change, food insecurity, and the very real threat of future pandemics, humanity is facing truly existential challenges. Against that backdrop, it is imperative to examine these opportunities and constraints, then reimagine new mechanisms and narratives — safe harbors — where China and the United States can continue to leverage their collective expertise for the global public good.</p> - -<p>This essay explores the reasons such a dialogue is needed, the risks at play, and some options for moving forward. Its aim is not to wish away deeply competitive features of the U.S.-China relationship, but rather to accept that these dynamics will persist and then generate understanding of and support for actively reimagining U.S.-China transnational collaborations in key areas of development. It seeks to advance thinking around ways to identify and pursue opportunities that support U.S. interests for multilateral social impact projects with China.</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>It is imperative to examine these opportunities and constraints, then reimagine new mechanisms and narratives — safe harbors — where China and the United States can continue to leverage their collective expertise for the global public good.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>It does not take an expert to appreciate that the relationship between China and the United States is among the most complex, fraught, and critical on earth. Nor does this paper suggest that U.S. policies toward China — or vice versa — are misguided. Quite the contrary. Albeit without access to much of the intelligence behind the current stances, this is written with full awareness of the many potential threats that each nation perceives in the other. Acknowledging the realities — and the fact that aggressive competition between these two powers is only likely to increase — this essay proposes that we need a new set of principles and mechanisms to guide continued collaboration among scientists and activists in health, climate, food security, and humanitarian relief. The well-being of the world depends on it.</p> - -<h3 id="chinas-journey-toward-global-development-impact">China’s Journey toward Global Development Impact</h3> - -<p>Among confrontational policies, rhetoric, and media coverage, it is easy to lose sight of or underappreciate China’s historical and current role in global development. In part, China’s work in countries across much of the Global South, with deep roots in the “South-South” brotherhood of developing economies starting back in the 1950s, is hard to track or understand. China’s historical role in global aid and development has often been opaque — deeply tied to its political interests in specific countries, often delivered as part of infrastructure or other economic packages, and generally done through bilateral (state-to-state) mechanisms or as part of larger investment deals. Without delving into a discourse on China’s philosophy and approach to global development, of which there are many, suffice it to say that China has taken a very different route from the West. Most notably, China has been slow to embrace multilateral initiatives (through large multicountry organizations) or to actively participate in large globally coordinated development or humanitarian initiatives.</p> - -<p>And yet, the many strands of China’s international collaboration have knitted together a clear commitment and broad narrative that are increasingly notable in terms of their scale and political importance. A range of bilateral scientific projects in health, agriculture, water and sanitation, and climate greatly expanded in the 1990s through the 2010s.</p> - -<p>Looking at global health as an example, U.S.-China collaboration quickly expanded after the two countries’ relations were normalized in 1979, particularly through exchanges and knowledge sharing with experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who worked with partner organizations to lay the health infrastructure groundwork that led to the establishment of China’s own CDC in 2001. With support from U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and coordination from regulatory authorities like the World Health Organization (WHO), China has become an essential linchpin in helping to eradicate polio through vaccine production and monitoring systems. China has also played a major role in combating tuberculosis (TB) and malaria — two of the world’s top infectious killers — by working with the World Bank, the British Department for International Development, Japan, the Netherlands, the WHO, the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation, and other international NGOs to dramatically cut infection rates through improved detection, technology, and treatment. Altogether, China’s work on TB has benefited some 668 million people, prompting the World Bank’s lead economist studying health in East Asia to call it “one of the most successful TB projects ever seen.” China also brought lessons learned in the fight against malaria to Africa. Its research program to find new treatments for malaria led to the discovery of artemisinin, now the basis of the world’s most effective antimalarial drugs. Overall, in the words of Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO Global Malaria Programme, China’s healthcare advancements have had a global “ripple effect.” This success was not solely the result of international aid. China’s spending on research and development in 2017 — at $200 billion — was nearly seven times its investment just a decade earlier, much of it in healthcare.</p> - -<p>However, these collaborations have taken on a different tone and approach in the past decade. President Xi Jinping has embarked on an aggressive campaign to build China’s geopolitical influence, especially with the Global South, and has placed global health and development as a critical piece of that work. Such initiatives include a broad set of mechanisms, and approaches include the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for infrastructure development involving 70 countries across South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa; the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a multilateral cooperative making social-improvement loans available to 91 member nations; and, more recently, a Global Development Initiative to aid nations’ continued recovery from the economic devastations of Covid-19. In his 2021 speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Xi explicitly stated that China would use its growing global influence to further the public good in science, food security, and other areas, calling on the world community to join in renewing a shared commitment to balanced, inclusive growth.</p> - -<p>To date, the impact of these ambitious-sounding initiatives has been unclear and comparatively modest, depending on whether you are measuring political influence or actual social development impact. Some argue that these have been poorly executed approaches driven by China’s agenda to expand its economic and strategic interests across the world; others see them as glimmers of potential for the possibility of using the enormous resources, manpower, and research capacity of the world’s second-largest economy to focus on critical global issues. For the latter to be realized, China needs to dispel anxiety by clearly demonstrating that these initiatives work for their intended beneficiaries, not just China’s interests. Regardless, they certainly represent notable change in a country long criticized for failing to address global poverty.</p> - -<h3 id="china-and-the-united-states-working-together">China and the United States Working Together</h3> - -<p>Within this context, many of China’s international collaborations have focused on global social impact by partnering with various U.S. organizations. In some cases, these partnerships have lasted more than a century. The Rockefeller Foundation, for instance, has maintained significant programs in China since 1913, funding — and shaping — the education of generations of doctors at Peking Union Medical College, as well as supporting humanitarian causes during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.</p> - -<p>Since opening its Beijing office in 2007, the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation has managed a portfolio of philanthropic grants and initiatives that includes programs to help China improve the quality of its medical products toward normative international standards, as well as contribute efforts to the fight against TB, HIV, and other diseases in China. The Gates Foundation has also provided technical assistance and support to Chinese efforts directed at low resource needs elsewhere in the world, including safe Chinese vaccines, innovations in agriculture and sanitation, and improved scientific research opportunities between Chinese and global scientists. In conjunction with the Beijing Municipal Government, the foundation launched and co-funded the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute (GHDDI), based at Tsinghua University, to help orient and leverage research and innovation toward critical diseases across the globe for which cures and treatments are needed.</p> - -<p>But the Gates Foundation is actually a latecomer. The Asia Foundation has been active in China since the late 1970s. The World Wildlife Fund has been working to promote conservation efforts in China — from forest management to wetlands conservation and species protection — since 1980. Johns Hopkins University and Nanjing University opened the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies in 1986. The Ford Foundation began working on U.S.-China issues in the 1960s through funding China studies centers in the United States, before establishing a Beijing office in 1988. Greenpeace has been working there since 1997. And the list goes on.</p> - -<p>On the U.S. side, this long association attests to the fact that for decades, the United States valued international exchanges as a form of “soft diplomacy.” The first Fulbright agreement signed by the United States was with China in 1947. And even during the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, U.S.-funded exchange programs supported some 20,000 international students for study in the United States each year. An increasingly large proportion of them have come from China. By 2019, 370,000 students from China were enrolled in U.S. schools, accounting for about 34 percent of foreign students in the United States. Most Chinese students in the United States have indicated a strong desire to stay in the United States, which underscores the importance of the programs but increasingly raises concerns in both Beijing and Washington.</p> - -<p>China welcomed these partnerships as well for many years — in part as a recipient of aid as a developing country with health and development programs focused on China, and in part as a component of its expanding global footprint across Africa and other regions of the globe, where it also has a strategic interest in “soft power” politics. The technical assistance provided to Chinese government agencies, academic institutions, and even companies through these programs significantly elevated China’s know-how and engagement on critical social issues, and even today it continues to be welcomed by Chinese and U.S. authorities on specific issues such as HIV/AIDS prevention and cancer research.</p> - -<h3 id="changing-geopolitical-winds">Changing Geopolitical Winds</h3> - -<p>Many international observers hoped that mounting tensions between China and the United States would be a passing phase, provoked by Donald Trump’s anti-China rhetoric and vanishing with his exit from office. Others suggested that as Xi Jinping consolidated power with a third term as leader of the Chinese Communist Party, his antipathy toward the United States might ease. But the divide has only become more entrenched, with the Biden administration solidifying a framing of China as the primary U.S. strategic competitor with numerous policies, sanctions, and commitments, and the Xi administration expanding its anti-U.S. policies and rhetoric. With schisms playing out militarily, technologically, economically, and ideologically, more observers are speaking in cold war terms — and expressing concerns about the potential for some event, such as a confrontation over Taiwan, to trigger a “hot war.”</p> - -<p>Much has been written by foreign policy experts about the nature and origins of this divide. This essay does not reiterate that analysis but hopes to advance a discussion of global good collaboration with full acknowledgement of the challenging landscape. Within a context of mutual distrust, the international community will need to develop new narratives and mechanisms through which academics and advocates can continue to make progress on urgent humanitarian needs. And it must undertake this quest while still struggling with the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war, which have added thorny new layers.</p> - -<p>At one time, health-related collaborations were viewed as politically acceptable, a safe harbor shielded from politics. But the panic and confusion around Covid-19 upended that tradition. First, questions about the origins of the virus itself — and whether it came from a lab in Wuhan — did significant damage to whatever trust existed between China and the West around common health concerns. The resulting accusations, misinformation, and counter-misinformation have created considerable tension. That fracture was compounded by questions about the WHO and whether it had helped China to cover its tracks during the first weeks of the pandemic. Later, new global tensions arose amid poor alignment between China and the West on confronting the pandemic. It has become increasingly difficult to understand how scientists and policymakers can rebuild trust in preparing for or responding to a future epidemic, although it is a hopeful sign that both countries contributed to the emerging Pandemic Fund established by the World Bank.</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>At one time, health-related collaborations were viewed as politically acceptable, a safe harbor shielded from politics. But the panic and confusion around Covid-19 upended that tradition.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and indeed its amplification of Russian propaganda about the invasion, has further strained U.S.-China relations. Even though China has refused to supply lethal assistance to Russia, it has significantly increased its economic links with its northern neighbor. In short, this inhospitable environment for strengthening or expanding critical collaborations has forced many partners to play defense in order to sustain any momentum.</p> - -<h3 id="a-chilling-impact-on-global-collaboration">A Chilling Impact on Global Collaboration</h3> - -<p>In the context of this challenging political environment and this era of great power competition, collaboration on social issues like health, climate, and agriculture has been disrupted or slowed down, and the future of this important work is becoming increasingly hazy. Data and anecdotes abound, from the dramatic drop of exchange programs mentioned above, to the fear of sanctions impacting scientific research, to Chinese interference with foreign companies’ activities, to the U.S. government’s approach to scientists and scholars of Chinese origins, and beyond. Over the past 10 years, several foreign NGOs operating in China have withdrawn or reduced services voluntarily or involuntarily, including Mercy Corps, Habitat for Humanity, and the Li Ka Shing Foundation. While difficult to ascertain, the amount of foreign philanthropy donated to China has also decreased, and the number of life science research collaborations have been curtailed, due more to geopolitical tensions than the Covid-19 pandemic.</p> - -<p>These issues are more than rhetorical; they directly impact the operations of organizations working to collaborate. Under China’s new Foreign NGO Law, all social sector activities are now subject to increased oversight by the Public Security Bureau. Partnerships with China also must operate within a new environment in the United States: bipartisan support of anti-China policies and increased scrutiny about its activities by government agencies and political leaders. Rigorous vigilance and full transparency are always wise when working on such issues, but this new climate creates a tangle of new bureaucracies and concerns.</p> - -<p>Far more challenging is the potential chilling effect of these government policies on mid-level bureaucrats. This is true on both sides of the Pacific. With officials disinclined to pursue any opportunity that might suggest political endorsement, social impact activists confront a distinct paralysis — a hesitance to go after even the lowest-hanging fruit. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many global offers to China for support or interventions from foreign parties, for example non-Chinese mRNA vaccines, were not even considered by many Chinese officials given the political sensitivities.</p> - -<p>This chilling effect has also impacted scientific collaborations. Jenny J. Lee, a professor at the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona, surveyed scientists, professors, and graduate students at 83 U.S. universities to determine how U.S.-China political policies were affecting research. More than 42 percent of Chinese scientists said they felt they were being racially profiled, even surveilled, by the U.S. government. Nearly 20 percent said that over the past three years they had prematurely or unexpectedly ended or suspended collaborations with colleagues in China. “This is actually undermining the U.S.’s ability to be globally competitive,” Lee observed. “Scientists are less likely to collaborate with China, less likely to host Chinese scientists, less inclined to apply for federal funding, which means smaller projects.”</p> - -<p>Like in every country, there are always challenging “red zones” around social impact work; in China, these include any effort to advance democracy or human rights, as well as any focus on Tibet, Xinjiang, or Taiwan. The strain around those engagements has flowed into other areas — such as data sharing or the use of technologies that raise concerns about misuse or national security concerns. Any such collaborations with commercial players must carefully consider the implications of a growing list of entities for which sanctions might apply.</p> - -<p>If this decoupling continues, and neither Chinese nor U.S. authorities and non-state actors provide clearer opportunities for collaboration, the chances of tackling major global challenges will be diminished. Partnerships between organizations from both the United States and China remain essential as they study, prepare for, and respond to issues on a global scale.</p> - -<h3 id="opportunities-for-safe-harbors-ahead">Opportunities for Safe Harbors Ahead</h3> - -<p>The good news in this dire scenario is that both governments recognize these risks. High-level officials on both sides of the Pacific have made clear public statements about the potential for further collaboration advancing the global good. In the fall of 2021, both countries surprised the world by issuing a joint statement at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. “In the area of climate change, there is more agreement between China and the U.S. than divergence, making it an area with huge potential for our cooperation,” said Xie Zhenhua, China’s chief negotiator on climate. John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, echoed the same: “The United States and China have no shortage of differences, but on climate, cooperation is the only way to get this job done.”</p> - -<p>More recently, the June 2023 meeting between President Xi and Secretary Blinken in Beijing reportedly focused on broader areas for cooperation. According to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “President Xi pointed out that the two sides need to remain committed to the common understandings he and President Biden had reached in Bali, and translate the positive statements into actions so as to stabilize and improve China-U.S. relations.” Blinken reiterated that both sides “agree on the need to stabilize our relationship” and that China and the United States should focus on areas of common interests. As Singapore foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan commented when meeting Blinken ahead of his trip to Beijing, “There are many global, planetary issues — climate, pandemics, even cyber security — which require the United States and China to work off the same page and be key pillars for a global system which will help increase resilience to threats to welfare, health and prosperity for people all over the world.”</p> - -<p>The less-good news is that these statements have been vague, sometimes contradictory, and generally unsupported by details about the policies, mechanisms, timeline, or authority under which any such partnerships might advance.</p> - -<p>That is why the discussion is so urgent: the situation calls for nongovernment actors — perhaps a consortium of foundations, NGOs, or research institutions — to fill in the gaps and delineate safe harbors for collaboration in the waters ahead.</p> - -<p>There are several hopeful strands of government-approved policies and civil society engagements to build upon. Beyond the climate engagements, there have been several track 1.5 or 2.0 dialogues between key Chinese and U.S. actors regarding global health and other issues. Policies that would have had enormous unintended consequences on global health and food security, such as proposed legislative language to prohibit China-sourced elements in any vaccines as part of the U.S. commitment to fund Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, have been avoided. In addition, new broad-based commitments on both sides of the Pacific, like the Biden administration’s “Invest, Align, Compete” policy and Beijing’s new Global Development Initiative, might offer political frameworks in which potential collaborations could be advanced, though there is much uncertainty about both models. There have been additional commitments by both the United States and China to multilateral mechanisms such as the UN World Food Programme and the new Pandemic Preparation Financial Intermediary Fund of the World Bank, which offer some ideas for further alignment and engagement.</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>That is why the discussion is so urgent: the situation calls for nongovernment actors — perhaps a consortium of foundations, NGOs, or research institutions — to fill in the gaps and delineate safe harbors for collaboration in the waters ahead.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>While these are promising islands of hope in the increasingly turbulent sea of issues, more directed and focused efforts are needed. This could be structured joint initiatives that are clear in their global social goals (and not related to national security) and detached from politics at home, along the lines of the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute referenced above; agreements for exchange of data and information that are shaped and managed in a way that both countries might accept, for instance on pandemic early-warning systems; or more philanthropic-led joint initiatives to collaborate in the case of third-country humanitarian responses, such as the cooperation during the West Africa Ebola epidemic. But given the new moment and particular conditions of the current great power competition, the parties at hand also need to both study how this has been done in the past and reimagine better ways for the future.</p> - -<h3 id="global-precedents">Global Precedents</h3> - -<p>In light of these discussions, seizing the opportunity to create safe harbors for continued collaboration feels urgent. And we can look to history as a guide. Effective social impact partnerships, even during intense confrontation, are not unprecedented. In fact, examples abound. China and the United States can take inspiration from mechanisms such as the water-sharing agreement between India and Pakistan that has endured since 1960, despite the two countries’ strained political relationship; the “humanitarian pauses” that evacuated civilians from conflict zones like Israel/Palestine and Syria; or vaccination campaigns and other public health risk-mitigation work undertaken during refugee crises.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the most relevant example is the highly successful “science diplomacy” campaign between the Soviet Union and the United States that eradicated smallpox during the height of the Cold War, when U.S. virologist Albert Sabin worked with two Soviet virologists to produce an oral polio vaccine — even as all three were being watched by a suspected KGB agent at Sabin’s lab in Cincinnati.</p> - -<p>After the vaccine was tested, deemed safe by the WHO, and licensed for production, Soviet scientists developed the technology for producing hundreds of millions of doses. Together, this health-focused collaboration between two political rivals eradicated smallpox in two decades.</p> - -<h3 id="what-now">What Now?</h3> - -<p>Admittedly, most observers believe prospects for accelerating development impact work with China over the next decade look grim. But social impact activists are realists, driven by optimism. To build collaboration, there are two needs upon which to focus: a more nuanced narrative regarding U.S.-China relations and a reimagined, clearer set of mechanisms for creating safe harbors for collaborative endeavors.</p> - -<h4 id="narrative">Narrative</h4> - -<p>Shaping a new narrative in the midst of hardline government policies is difficult. But it is critical to emphasize an effort mission-driven by social impact concerns, rather than politics. At a minimum, a new framing can outline the ways in which non-state actors (such as NGOs, philanthropies, and businesses) are uniquely well positioned to continue shaping collaborative programs in areas of mutual self-interest, all without violating their respective governments’ policies or approaches. Most importantly, the narrative must make plain that these relationships are not part of a zero-sum game, where one side wins and the other loses. Rather, in thinking about climate change mitigation, global public health, food security, and development financing, it is more effective — and realistic — to advance an “all boats rising” perspective. Mutual self-interest in Washington and Beijing can drive progress in all of these areas.</p> - -<h4 id="mechanisms">Mechanisms</h4> - -<p>Any meaningful discussion also would need to explore the actual mechanisms through which collaborations could flourish. What those are and how they should work is beyond the scope of this essay. But the examples provided may offer inspiration for new efforts to pick up the baton and stride forward.</p> - -<p>Finding opportunities for engagement might start, for example, with “surgical strikes” on climate and health — targeted partnerships on key issues. Would such discrete efforts be sustainable? In an environment of conflict, would innovators, activists, and officials have the “cover” they need to devise creative solutions to the world’s shared problems? One model for action might involve a coalition of like-minded think tanks and philanthropies, acting in alignment with both governments while operating independently.</p> - -<p>The private sector may offer hints too. For example, a major boost to the World Wildlife Fund’s work on conservation in China came from Apple, the electronics company, which partnered with the wildlife group in 2015 to work with Chinese forestry companies on ways to reduce logging impacts, mitigate fire risk and chemical use, and increase worker safety. China — the world’s largest consumer and producer of paper products — has since protected 1 million acres of forestland in accordance with standards set by the international Forest Steward Council.</p> - -<p>That said, the consequences of getting this wrong are not trivial. While it is not hard to imagine a group of Western non-state actors operating in the sort of model sketched above, nothing in China is so neatly separated from government oversight. This reality would naturally raise concerns that the independence of one side could be weaponized by the other.</p> - -<p>Further, would China be acting as China alone, or as a representative of the developing world? In an era of democratic decline, could collaboration with China end up aiding authoritarian regimes around the globe? For example, if Washington supported making qualified, lower-priced, China-sourced drugs widespread for fighting disease in sub-Saharan Africa, might it risk subsidizing an emerging marketplace that would advantage China economically, against the United States?</p> - -<h3 id="the-way-forward">The Way Forward</h3> - -<p>Forty years witnessing the impact of human-to-human work on areas of mutual concern across borders and boundaries reinforces the conviction that it is possible to build partnerships that run complementary to government policy, even in authoritarian states. Yes, the questions outlined in this essay are complex. But the problems confronting our planet demand that the United States fight its way through them with China as a partner — if only in this limited context. The first step forward lies in refining the narrative that frames this work. Brookings and CSIS have already begun that important conversation, jointly launching the Advancing Collaboration in an Era of Strategic Competition project earlier this year. The purpose of this essay is to deepen it — and to turn up the volume.</p> - -<p>Ventures like this will always attract naysayers, who attribute any positive response from China as stemming entirely from national self-interest. But experience while running the global health nonprofit PATH offers another interpretation. At the time, China had a vaccine for Japanese encephalitis that had protected millions of Chinese children, while other global sources were too expensive for the markets in Southeast Asia where the disease was rampant. When PATH approached the Chinese manufacturer, the Chengdu Institute of Biological Products (CDIBP), about making its vaccine available outside the country’s borders, cost-benefit analyses and political chess were trumped by defining a common goal that would greatly benefit many children, which could not be done without working together. Over 300 million children have been protected from a terrible disease through this collaboration. “When it became evident that this vaccine could change the world,” one leader on the project later recalled, “[CDIBP] said, ‘What do we need to do?’”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><strong>Steve Davis</strong> currently serves as a Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer and global health faculty fellow and as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He most recently served as executive strategic advisor and interim director, China Country Office, for the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation, and is the former president and CEO of PATH, a leading global health innovation organization.</p>Steve DavisAs intense geostrategic rivalry becomes an enduring feature of the U.S.-China relationship, this essay argues that game-changing opportunities for social impact across health, climate change, and food security are within reach — but will depend on new mechanisms and narratives that enable collaborations between partners in the United States and China to proceed in smart, informed, and geopolitically sensitive ways.【初選47人案・審訊第 111 日】2023-08-22T12:00:00+08:002023-08-22T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/trial-of-hk-democrat-primary-elections-day-111<ul> - <li>李予信完成作供 指黨否決財案「統一口徑」無約束力、從無講過亦無採納</li> -</ul> - -<excerpt /> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/0ounAPi.png" alt="image01" /></p> - -<p>【獨媒報導】47人涉組織及參與民主派初選，被控「串謀顛覆國家政權」罪，16人不認罪，今（22日）踏入審訊第111天。李予信今續接受盤問，就被搜得的初選論壇筆記不止一次提及否決預算案迫政府回應五大訴求，李指只是公民黨資深顧問抄黨的「Line to take（統一口徑）」，但理解非百分百要求候選人說出當中內容，只是參考、無約束力，視乎臨場發揮和「自己想唔想講」，他在論壇「從來冇講過亦從來冇採納過」。法官質疑，若公民黨候選人可自由偏離黨的統一口徑，那制定有什麼意思？李指為「原則性嘅展示」、「展示緊黨嘅一啲態度為先」，但各區區情、每名候選人身分等均不同，故實際上講法也不一樣。而就另一份黨的統一口徑文件提到避免講「攬炒」，李指公民黨不支持「攬炒」，但又提否決預算案是「有矛盾」和彈性。</p> - -<p>此外，李亦否認自己當選後打算跟從黨立場，重申雖無向公眾表明，但有透過選舉宣傳暗示此訊息。李予信今完成4日作供，明將由本案最後一名被告、參選衞生服務界的余慧明作供。</p> - -<h4 id="李指成為候選人後無深究墨落無悔不太重視該聲明">李指成為候選人後無深究「墨落無悔」、不太重視該聲明</h4> - -<p>李予信今繼續接受盤問，就公民黨6月11日簽署的「墨落無悔」聲明，李早前供稱無參與任何討論、與他無關，指他當時並非潛在候選人，「我冇去關心」。李今在盤問下指，他於6月13日後才獲准參選，而參選前很多政治人物和參選人也有分享該聲明，故他知悉亦有「快䁽過」，但在正式成為候選人後就無再繼續深究，「因為當時我唔係好重視呢個聲明。」李又指，不知道公民黨「用個黨嘅名擺喺個聲明度呢個動作」，但從黨的帖文看到其聲稱自己加入了聯署。</p> - -<p>控方展示該6月11日的帖文，提及「公民黨已加入聯署【墨落無悔 堅定抗爭】聲明書」，又提到「我們早於3月25日召開記者招待會，當時已承諾尊重民主派初選機制；立會過半後政府必須落實五大訴求，否則公民黨將行使《基本法》賦予的否決權」。</p> - -<h4 id="李指賴仁彪無畀壓力一定要講某啲承諾理解為彈性">李指賴仁彪「無畀壓力一定要講某啲承諾」、理解為彈性</h4> - -<p>萬德豪指，帖文無提及就否決預算案有彈性，但李早前指譚文豪曾向他稱「有彈性」，李看到帖文後有問譚嗎？李指他沒有問，譚於5月底的會面亦沒有承諾他當選後會給予彈性，但譚「鼓勵我繼續持有我本來所講嘅政綱」，並指李選超區時要謹守他作為街頭舞蹈藝術家和社工區議員兩個「好特別嘅身分」，指其政綱與身分相連，因此李理解該彈性「係展現於鼓勵我繼續持有呢個政綱呢件事上面」。</p> - -<p>李並指，彈性也體現於6月13日後，賴仁彪指黨可讓他參選，「我理解係黨能夠用佢嘅資源去支持我作為一個候選人嘅選舉理念同政綱，佢亦都冇畀我任何嘅壓力，要我一定要講某啲嘅承諾。」</p> - -<h4 id="李指黨統一口徑無約束力非百分百嚴格要求候選人講">李指黨「統一口徑」無約束力、非百分百嚴格要求候選人講</h4> - -<p>法官李運騰提到，鄭達鴻被搜出選舉「論壇天書」，李予信也有收到類似的文件嗎？李指有，解釋準備選舉時，黨資深顧問 Masun 負責撰寫「line to take（統一口徑）」，該顧問也會參與候選人的媒體訓練（media training），並因每區的區情、形勢和關注點也不一樣，而「落去同我哋候選人傾一個 tailor made 嘅講法」，「所以我理解嗰個 line to take 唔係完全一百分之一百 strictly 要求候選人 exact wording 去講嗰啲嘢。」</p> - -<p>控方續展示從李搜得、題為「Draft 5 LTT」的文件，李解釋是黨整體使用的統一口徑，不止有5個版本，但不記得共有多少；至於另一份「初選論壇（4/7錄影）」，李解釋主要為論壇準備，由資深黨顧問和李競選團隊一兩個成員草擬和修改，參考黨的統一口徑再加上自己區情形勢寫成。李指他知道內容，且「最緊要就係，其實呢份 document 只係一個參考，而所有論壇表現好睇臨場嘅發揮、同埋我自己想唔想講，係冇約束力嘅」。李又指，該文件最原始版本應在6月，其後不斷更改，最新版本為7月2、3日，但不肯定呈堂文件是否最新。他同意超區論壇於7月4日錄影，7月6日廣播。</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/atK0s0e.png" alt="image02" /> -▲ 李予信</p> - -<h4 id="李指公民黨唔畀講攬炒又反對財案有矛盾-曾與資深顧問談及">李指公民黨「唔畀講『攬炒』」又反對財案有矛盾 曾與資深顧問談及</h4> - -<p>就「Draft 5 LTT」提到「避免自己講『攬炒』字眼」，李同意是公民黨一貫看法；文件亦提及「35+後否決預算案，令政府停擺，就是攬炒，令香港民不聊生」，以及民主派如議會過半「提出否決政府議案，係我哋反制暴政嘅強力武器，其實係俾最後一次機會林鄭政府去回應市民嘅訴求，只要政府同意回應五大訴求、重啟政改，同埋撤回國安法，民主派就會按照正常方式審議政府議案，根本唔會停擺」。</p> - -<p>萬德豪問李收到文件後，曾否向黨資深顧問表示不同意？李指該段文字「其實就係反映黨嘅立場嘅彈性嘅存在，不過好模糊地存在」，因公民黨不支持「攬炒」，「佢都識講，『攬炒』會令到民不聊生」，但同時又有否決預算案的說法，「唔畀講『攬炒』又講反對財政預算案」，「兩者係矛盾嘅。」李指他有與顧問馬生談過該「立場上嘅彈性同矛盾」，馬針對其街舞藝術家和社工區議員身分，着李「講返我想講嘅嘢」。</p> - -<h4 id="論壇文件提勿太老實勿有問必答-李指為論壇技巧因論壇非100講道理">論壇文件提勿太老實、勿有問必答 李指為論壇技巧、因論壇非100%講道理</h4> - -<p>控方續展示「初選論壇（4/7錄影）」文件，法官關注寫有「X太老實 X有問必答」。李指是論壇技巧，「佢意思係唔好人哋問咩你就講晒咁多咁」，陳志全發笑。陳慶偉指，因此李是在誤導？李否認，陳追問何謂「X太老實」，李答「因為政治嘅論壇唔係講緊道理」，陳慶偉發笑，李遂更正「應該唔係講緊100%嘅道理」。李運騰微笑問，即有些問題並非真問題，而是陷阱？李說「可以咁樣講」。</p> - -<p>陳慶偉續問，李是說他們不要相信政治人物所說的話？李指政治人物發言時要強調一些訊息，喚起更多關注，「依啲都可以好有理性基礎，但係喺論壇上面，因為個時間好短，可能叫你十秒回應一個好大嘅議題，咁你就要記得自己好想畀公眾知道嘅理念。」李運騰說，基本上就是說他想說的話，李說「其實我係咁理解嘅」。法官陳仲衡續說，「不要在庭上這樣做，重要是先答問題，之後再提供解釋」，旁聽發笑。</p> - -<h4 id="統一口徑提35後以否決權迫政權落實五大訴求-李稱從無講過也無採納">「統一口徑」提35+後以否決權迫政權落實五大訴求 李稱從無講過也無採納</h4> - -<p>萬德豪續說，「我的問題不是一個陷阱，而是一個真正的問題」，法官陳慶偉和陳志全發笑。控方續展示李的論壇文件，提到：「入到立法會第一件事想做啲咩？35+後以否決權迫令政權落實五大訴求，係我哋當今出選人嘅共識。」李解釋「呢個係抄返（黨）LTT（Line to take），一模一樣」。</p> - -<p>萬續向李指出，他當時知道初選候選人有共識否決預算案爭取五大訴求，惟陳慶偉指控方要記得李沒有出席過協調會。李續回應他不知道，亦不同意控方指他知道，「因為我連黨入面都觀察到有唔同立場，民主派陣營亦都有唔同嘅講法，我嘅論壇入面都顯示緊呢個事實。」</p> - -<p>李運騰追問，李事實上曾否於選舉論壇採納該句「Line to take」？李說：「從來冇講過亦從來冇採納過。」萬德豪問李沒有講過是否因為無人這樣問，惟陳慶偉即打斷指留待陳詞。</p> - -<h4 id="官質疑如可自由偏離制定統一口徑有何意思-李原則性展示">官質疑如可自由偏離、制定統一口徑有何意思 李：原則性展示</h4> - -<p>控方續引文件提到「能夠做到議會過半真係好重要，咁我哋先可以反制暴政，喺議會裡面擋住23條呢啲惡法，另一方面可以透過否決所有政府提出嘅議案同撥款，包括財政預算案，逼使政府重啟政改、落實五大訴求」。李指該句「都係抄（黨）LLT，都係馬生嘅作品」。</p> - -<p>李運騰問，所以這是馬生想李說的話？李說不肯定，但指團隊會將相關資料放在一起給他看，他不記得有否跟馬說不會於論壇提，「但最尾我係冇講嘅一定。」萬德豪續問，而否決財案的部分一直在所有類似文件出現？李同意，指「我理解都係抄黨嘅 LTT，亦都有我冇講嘅部分」。</p> - -<p>李運騰指，有趣地所有公民黨參選人也有相同的統一口徑，那如他們可以自由偏離黨的統一口徑，那制定統一口徑有什麼意思？（“… free to deviate from the LTT, then what’s the point of having one?”）李表示，「其實 LTT 係一個展示緊黨嘅一啲態度為先，但實際上嘅講法呢，每個候選人嘅身分、佢所代表嘅業界利益，同埋地區直選嘅區情，都係會好唔一樣。」</p> - -<p>陳仲衡打斷指，因此有 LTT，但也有個別和不同（exemptions and disagreement）的情況？李說「係，可以咁理解，係有彈性」。李運騰指他明白有彈性，但若分歧大到根本連一個共同共識也沒有，「為何要有這個統一口徑？（“Why bother to have this line to take?”）」李說：「我理解為係一個原則性嘅展示，例如一國兩制⋯⋯」惟陳慶偉即打斷。</p> - -<h4 id="李無告訴公眾不跟黨立場否決-但指宣傳有暗示此訊息">李無告訴公眾不跟黨立場否決 但指宣傳有暗示此訊息</h4> - -<p>控方續展示李予信的論壇「Drilling Record」文件，提到「自己政綱／議題（夾黨）」，列出工廈、囚權、追究警暴等，李解釋即自己的政綱議題與黨議題「相夾到嘅地方」。李並解釋，「Drilling」指「media drilling」，是「一種練習嘅 session」，他會重複回答一些問題和重複自己想講的理念，「睇吓講得好唔好、有啲乜嘢改善、或者有啲咩嘢內容需要更正。」</p> - -<p>萬德豪最後問，李曾否告訴公眾他不會跟從黨立場，否決預算案以爭取五大訴求，李回應：「我冇咁樣講過，因為我有透過我嘅宣傳 imply 一個咁嘅訊息。」萬最後指出控方案情，指李當選後有意跟從黨立場，串謀與其他被告取得立會過半，無差別否決預算案，迫使政府回應五大訴求，李不同意。萬再指李有意顛覆國家政權，李答：「我無意顛覆國家政權。」</p> - -<h4 id="李作供完畢-余慧明將作供">李作供完畢 余慧明將作供</h4> - -<p>控方盤問完結，大律師關文渭沒有覆問，李予信案情完結。代表本案最後一名被告余慧明的大律師石書銘表示，余會作供，料需時少於兩天，問現在抑或明日開始？法官陳慶偉指明日開始，林卓廷說：「吓？」案件明早續審。</p> - -<p>散庭時，有旁聽人士向余慧明喊：「加油呀！努力呀！聽日見！」</p> - -<hr /> - -<p>案件編號：HCCC69/2022</p>獨媒報導李予信完成作供 指黨否決財案「統一口徑」無約束力、從無講過亦無採納【初選47人案・審訊第 110 日】2023-08-21T12:00:00+08:002023-08-21T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/trial-of-hk-democrat-primary-elections-day-110<ul> - <li>李予信稱獲楊岳橋指示報名參選港島後被叫停、理解非鄭達鴻「Plan B」</li> - <li>李予信指楊岳橋否決財案「莊嚴承諾」未必兌現、不會跟黨立場投票</li> -</ul> - -<excerpt /> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/qKMliOT.png" alt="image01" /></p> - -<p>【獨媒報導】47人涉組織及參與民主派初選，被控「串謀顛覆國家政權」罪，16人不認罪，今（21日）踏入審訊第110天。李予信繼續作供，表示超區初選落敗、宣布不參與立法會選舉後，7月底獲時任黨魁楊岳橋指示報名參選港島，理解楊當時因DQ憂慮而作出準備。李指郭榮鏗、楊岳橋和郭家麒三人被DQ後，楊一度要他停止申請，惟他已交表、未能取回表格，向楊表示「好 frustrate」，楊則回答「阿信，it’s OK」，李其後得悉原參選港島的鄭達鴻同被DQ。不過李表示，理解他並非鄭達鴻的「Plan B」，他交表前亦不曾諮詢或通知鄭達鴻。此外，原表示擬不作供、參選衞生服務界的余慧明，其代表大狀指索取指示後，余將會作供。余為本案最後一名被告。</p> - -<h4 id="辯方透露原擬不作供余慧明擬作供">辯方透露原擬不作供余慧明擬作供</h4> - -<p>甫開庭，代表鄒家成的大律師陳世傑表示，鄒另所涉的7.1佔領立法會案，擬於本周三（23日）下午進行案件管理聆訊，問本案能否於當天下午休庭。法官陳慶偉指待他想想，但據現時進度，案件有可能於周三完成。不過代表本案最後一名被告、原表示擬不作供的余慧明的大律師石書銘即表示，收到指示余慧明將會作供，辯方案情或需數天時間處理。陳世傑臨散庭時表示撤回申請，指鄒毋須出席該次聯訊。</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/XQhA2xU.png" alt="image02" /> -▲ 余慧明，2021年7月28日曾一度獲准保釋。（資料圖片）</p> - -<h4 id="李稱楊岳橋指示報名參選港島惟楊3人被dq後被要求停止申請">李稱楊岳橋指示報名參選港島、惟楊3人被DQ後被要求停止申請</h4> - -<p>參選超區的前公民黨東區區議員李予信繼續作供，他早前供稱於超區初選落敗，於7月15日宣布不參與正式選舉，李今同意於2020年7月30日報名參與港島區立法會選舉，而他不曾參與港島區初選。李解釋，他於7月29日中午收到時任黨魁楊岳橋電話通知，指黨有機會徵召他參與港島區選舉。當時該區由鄭達鴻出選，李理解楊當時因DQ憂慮而作出一些準備，故在前一日要準備提名。</p> - -<p>李指當晚至翌日早上仍在找提名，取齊提名和填好表格後便等候指示，當時公民黨未有人被DQ。李並指7月30日下午約1時，楊岳橋致電他「叫我去入紙報名喇，可以」，李遂與助理一起到上環選舉事務處，約兩時多開始進行申請程序，提交逾100個提名及公民黨予他的5萬元現金按金。</p> - -<p>李指完成手續後獲發收據，行出大廳時便收到楊岳橋指示，當時郭榮鏗、楊岳橋和郭家麒已被DQ，楊「叫我去停止呢個申請動作」。李指他即回頭找職員，「就話我啱啱遞完張 form，但我而家想收返個申請」，惟職員拒絕，表示根據制度，退選只能透過正式申請一份退選申請書辦妥。李指職員其後給他一份文件，但記不清楚是否該表格，他並告訴楊岳橋「我收唔走嗰張申請」，「我向佢表示好 frustrate，因為攞唔返」，楊則回覆「阿信，it’s OK」，並叫他先回公民黨總部，容後再商討。李並於當天近4時、尚在選舉事務處時收到鄭達鴻被DQ的消息。</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/HP56wAQ.png" alt="image03" /> -▲ 李予信</p> - -<h4 id="李稱立法會截止報名日-曾陪梁嘉善報名新西">李稱立法會截止報名日 曾陪梁嘉善報名新西</h4> - -<p>李予信同意，當晚約7時楊岳橋召開記招，交代有關DQ事宜，當時無人有時間再商討他收回申請一事。至記招完後，楊岳橋着李「hold 住個申請先，聽朝再算」。至7月31日的立法會正式選舉截止報名日期，李稱當天中午到曾獲通過排楊岳橋新東名單第二的梁嘉善辦公室，因他理解當時的討論「係究竟其他選區嘅好似我呢個情況徵召嘅人，報唔報名好」。李同意，理解梁嘉善同樣為被公民黨徵召的人，但不肯定其會員狀態。</p> - -<p>李續指，看到梁收到指示要去報名參選新界西，並指「因為我係唯一一個一早報咗名嘅徵召者，所以31號我淨係坐喺度睇嘅啫」，並陪伴梁去報名。李在法官追問下指當時無人指示他要做什麼，「我純粹係陪伴佢，因為大家都係徵召者」，不過同日傍晚，政府宣布將選舉延後一年。</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Z2m8ghj.png" alt="image04" /> -▲ 梁嘉善（資料圖片）</p> - -<h4 id="李稱理解不是鄭達鴻plan-b交表前不曾諮詢或通知鄭達鴻">李稱理解不是鄭達鴻「Plan B」、交表前不曾諮詢或通知鄭達鴻</h4> - -<p>辯方大律師關文渭續展示選舉事務處的文件，顯示「Te-wing chi（戴穎姿）」於7月31日報名港島區。李理解戴與公民黨有關係，指於2016年認識戴，她當時為公民黨實習生，至2020年「應該係」鄭達鴻競選團隊員工，因他4至5月中探討成為鄭名單第二時曾在鄭的辦事處見過戴。</p> - -<p>李續指，不知道戴是否被公民黨徵召參選和是否代表黨參選，也不知道她是否鄭達鴻「Plan B」。至於李本人，「我理解我唔係鄭生嘅Plan B」，但除他以外當時不知道公民黨有派其他人參選港島。</p> - -<p>關文渭續問，李是否從無被DQ，惟法官即打斷指當時選舉已延期。關續指，但李已交表，可於翌日被DQ，法官陳慶偉笑言「我不認為公務員是那麼有效率」，法官陳仲衡亦着辯方要現實。陳慶偉並指，認為辯方提出戴小姐的議題是完全與案無關。關續表示完成主問。</p> - -<p>代表鄭達鴻的大律師黃宇逸其後進行盤問，李予信同意，他提交正選提名表格前不曾諮詢或通知鄭達鴻，亦不知鄭曾否被任何公民黨的人諮詢或通知。</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/kKRVJ6D.png" alt="image05" /> -▲ 左起：楊岳橋、鄭達鴻、李予信（資料圖片）</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/HcqHugS.png" alt="image06" /></p> - -<p>【獨媒報導】47人涉組織及參與民主派初選，被控「串謀顛覆國家政權」罪，16人不認罪，今（21日）踏入審訊第110天。李予信今接受控方盤問，就楊岳橋於公民黨記者會指若政府不回應五大訴求，否決每個法案和撥款是「莊嚴承諾」，李指黨內議員以往也有投票不一致的情況，「so far 冇嘢可以 bound（綑綁）到所有公民黨立法會議員一致去投票」，亦認為該承諾未必會兌現。李又指就否決財案立場與黨不同，但無公開表達，遭法官質疑如他沒有黨的支持便「什麼也不是」，他要跟從黨立場。惟李指其政綱已反映他以選民利益為先，若黨不批准他豁免跟黨立場投票，「我都會照跟自己意向投票，就即管睇吓個黨有啲乜嘢嘅後果畀我。」</p> - -<p>李又指，《國安法》條文頒布後，認為提及否決權的政綱或違法，即通知團隊停派舊單張並設計新單張，將含有公民黨政綱的內容「全部放棄」。李又指，除目標議席外不知超區初選有其他協議，指多年來協調均談及議席和配票策略。李亦指他無收過超區協調文件，主控萬德豪指他至少有看過，惟法官李運騰質疑控方說法有何證據，指李並無被搜出該文件，「你是代表控方，你指出案情時要有基礎。」</p> - -<h4 id="控方質疑公民黨記者會非推廣選民登記-李指選民登記可助爭議會過半">控方質疑公民黨記者會非推廣選民登記 李指選民登記可助爭議會過半</h4> - -<p>參選超區的前公民黨東區區議員李予信今早完成主問，由主控萬德豪進行盤問。就前黨友鄭達鴻早前供稱黨團負責立法會最前線政策，李指「我當時咁樣猜測，但 actually 係點樣我唔清楚」；至於鄭稱黨團凌駕執委會，李亦稱不知道兩者互動實際上是怎樣，「無從評論邊個高權力啲。」</p> - -<p>就公民黨3月25日記者會，楊岳橋提到若特首不回應五大訴求，「公民黨係會同佢唔客氣⋯⋯以後政府每一個法案、財政撥款申請，我哋都會否決，呢個亦都係一個莊嚴嘅承諾」，而政府如仍不退讓，也會「義無反顧」否決預算案，並希望能促成35+「一齊否決」預算案。公民黨事後將記者會摘要於 Facebook 發布，李同意有轉發該帖文。</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/vrTVWan.png" alt="image07" /> -▲ 梁家傑（左）、楊岳橋（右）（資料圖片）</p> - -<p>萬德豪續質疑，李於記者會上手持「議會過半 實現五大訴求」的紙牌，指記者會並非如李所說是關於選民登記。李不同意，指屬論述層面、是選民登記一部分，理解「選民登記係可以貢獻於爭取議會過半呢個目標」。</p> - -<p>控方欲追問時，陳慶偉稱理解李指該些紙牌是用來吸引人做選民，李同意，並指黨推廣選民登記是想更多人支持民主派。李運騰指，尤其是想人支持公民黨？李指「可以咁講」，但會上訊息提及尊重、團結，「我理解就係有個大局觀喺度」，即取得議會過半。萬指若過半便可落實五大訴求？李稱「我哋唔知係咪真係落實到」。</p> - -<h4 id="李重申記者會訊息混合發言者有矛盾">李重申記者會訊息混合、發言者有矛盾</h4> - -<p>李予信早前形容，記者會訊息「混合」，楊岳橋等稱否決所有撥款，但郭家麒又指預算案合理會支持。萬續質疑，據楊岳橋記者會上說法，很清楚（crystal clear）公民黨立場就是否決預算案爭取五大訴求，並非李所說的「混合訊息」。李不同意，指「有好多人講嘢」。陳慶偉追問，雖然其他人說了不同的話，但公民黨於記者會的立場還是很清楚？李運騰亦問，不同人的訊息並沒有彼此矛盾？李均不同意，認為有矛盾，但同意主題是清楚。</p> - -<h4 id="李稱黨議員投票不一致理解公民黨未必兌現否決財案莊嚴承諾">李稱黨議員投票不一致、理解公民黨「未必兌現」否決財案「莊嚴承諾」</h4> - -<p>萬德豪續問，李予信曾否告知楊岳橋，若他當選後不會跟隨黨立場，否決預算案以爭取五大訴求。李指他無這樣說過，但公民黨以往也有出現「議員投票唔一致」的情況，「so far（至今為止）冇嘢可以 bound（綑綁）到所有公民黨立法會議員一致去投票」，他當時亦有此理解。</p> - -<p>法官陳慶偉問，但以往公民黨議員有不同投票立場時，黨有作出過「莊嚴承諾」嗎？李指不記得。陳續指，莊嚴承諾並非「口輕輕」許下、應該被兌現，否則就會令選民失去信心，因此公民黨3月許下此莊嚴承諾時，完全是打算兌現。惟李指「我理解係未必會兌現」。</p> - -<p>萬德豪續問，公民黨以往曾許過多少「莊嚴承諾」？惟李運騰指，李予信只於2018年入黨，問題是否對他公平。李予信續在追問下，指公民黨在2018至2020年曾做過很多承諾，李運騰追問，但重要到會召記招表明作出莊嚴承諾？李再指不記得。陳慶偉亦提到，3月25日記者會上黨魁楊岳橋和黨主席梁家傑均坐在中間，問李看過多少次這樣的安排？李指二人份量較高，公民黨開記招時都是坐中間。</p> - -<h4 id="官質疑李過往均跟黨立場惟至控罪核心始稱不跟-李指政綱有反映">官質疑李過往均跟黨立場、惟至控罪核心始稱不跟 李指政綱有反映</h4> - -<p>陳慶偉續指李予信是公民黨的鐵粉（die-hard fan），一直跟從黨的立場（line），那為何7月時改變？李指他入黨前一直關注公民黨，成為支部會員後很多工作、守則和政治原則上，也會參考公民黨的說法、他亦同意；但就否決預算案的立場，「其實喺嗰個 moment，我係有唔同嘅。」</p> - -<p>陳慶偉指他就是要測試李，並追問若李一直跟從黨路線，為何偏偏在本案控罪的中心議題（centre issue of the charge），才有不同的做法？李解釋：「因為依個部分就直接同我想參選做立法會議員嘅初衷好有關係，而依樣嘢係我之前未 encounter（遇上）過嘅。」陳慶偉續指，若不是鄭達鴻「拍膊頭」，李不會成為區議員，又指「我不是要貶低你，不過沒有公民黨的支持，你什麼都不是（“Without the support of the Civic Party, you are simply — put it this way, I am not trying to be derogatory — nobody.”）」，李說：「可以咁樣講嘅。」</p> - -<p>陳慶偉續指，李予信決定參選時需要黨的支持，因此要跟從黨立場，亦從沒有向公眾提及他不會跟黨否決預算案。李指他對公眾所有講法和訊息，都是根據其參選理念和原則，「無論喺公開嘅發言、單張、文宣、論壇，我嘅訊息都係一致同清晰」，但承認無公開講過，不會跟從黨立場否決預算案以爭取五大訴求。陳慶偉即說：「但你可以，不是嗎？在你新印的單張，你可以說我以選民利益優先，不論黨的立場如何。」李指「依個訊息我從來都係咁樣強調」，他未必用文字直接表達，但政綱內容有反映，均清晰談及整體社會市民利益和他特別關注的群體。</p> - -<h4 id="李稱理解黨資助有考慮其政綱若申豁免投票不獲批-仍會跟自己意向投票">李稱理解黨資助有考慮其政綱、若申豁免投票不獲批 仍會跟自己意向投票</h4> - -<p>鄭達鴻早前稱，公民黨有豁免跟隨黨立場投票的機制。李續同意，若不跟隨黨立場投票須申請豁免，未必會批准，而若不獲批，「我都會照跟自己意向投票，就即管睇吓個黨有啲乜嘢嘅後果畀我」，但承認當時沒有提過會申請。而李早前供稱黨最終願資助他40萬初選經費，法官陳仲衡問獲得該資助有否任何責任伴隨，陳慶偉亦問李會否認為自己應負一些責任，例如對黨忠誠？李指「都會有呢個理解」，但當時未有就「莊嚴承諾」的講法「有一個咁 specific 嘅關注」。</p> - -<p>李早前亦稱，5月底與譚文豪會面，指其所倡議政策需要錢，與黨立場或有出入。李今再指6月5日晚與選舉策略委員會會面時，譚亦是委員之一，李將曾向譚提過的政綱，即他在單張和論壇提及、一些需要爭取撥款的項目寫下予委員會，「所以佢 finance 我嘅決定，我理解其實佢有考慮過我所持有嘅政綱同想法係點樣。」</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/5RrST9s.png" alt="image08" /> -▲ 譚文豪（資料圖片）</p> - -<p>陳慶偉問，但前提是政府回應五大訴求、公民黨不否決預算案，李才能提出其項目，並問李有向委員會提過，會將其政綱放在黨的莊嚴承諾前嗎？李指當時無討論過，只能說理解如他所持理念和政綱能得到黨支持，「入到議會無論點都好，我都會繼續跟進」，「無論政府回唔回應（五大訴求）都好，我都會繼續去咁樣講、咁樣投票。」陳慶偉問，李予信想黨支持其政綱，那認為黨也會想他支持其政策嗎？李說「會有咁樣嘅理解」。萬德豪其後指，李從無意圖申請豁免機制，以不跟從黨否決預算案的立場，李不同意。</p> - -<h4 id="李稱政綱或違國安法-着團隊停派並設計新單張-全棄公民黨政綱">李稱政綱或違《國安法》 着團隊停派並設計新單張 全棄公民黨政綱</h4> - -<p>就李予信於初選提名表格提交的政綱，提及「爭取議會過半35+，以關鍵否決權促使政府落實『五大訴求』」，控方指是楊岳橋之前提過的「莊嚴承諾」。李指講法相若，控方可以這樣聯想，但「我嘅政綱同依個講法係矛盾嘅」。李追問下表示，當時無反對用此政綱，而他授權其他人交表，提交時知道亦同意表格附上此政綱。</p> - -<p>李續指《國安法》實施後，公民黨秘書處於6月30日晚或7月1日早上，為所有候選人發電郵，「一次過轉晒」所有公民黨候選人政綱為「無字政綱」，他其後獲告知此事，但無參與決定過程、不知確實由誰下決定、亦無人諮詢過他，而他理解「之前嘅政綱可能有問題，同《國安法》相違」。</p> - -<p>法官陳仲衡問，李認為舊版政綱有問題？李指「我當時有咁諗過」，指《國安法》6月30日晚出爐後，他看過條文加上自己一些判斷，「我第一時間通知我嘅選舉團隊，立即停派舊嘅單張，同埋立即設計一個新嘅單張，將包含有公民黨政綱嘅內容呢，全部放棄。」李盤問下指之後沒有告訴選民他已放棄相關政綱。</p> - -<p>至於 Facebook 帖文，李指3月25日記者會帖文內有選民登記網頁的連結，認為是該帖文焦點，故沒有刪除。控方質疑即使選民登記截止、《國安法》生效後李也沒有刪除，李指「因為已經沉晒底㗎喇個 post」，尤其選舉最熾熱的宣傳期曾發布很多帖文，「當時我都唔再在意啲咁舊嘅 post 喇。」</p> - -<h4 id="李理解初選規則衍生自共識除目標議席不知其他協議-指是對多年協調理解">李理解初選規則衍生自共識、除目標議席不知其他協議 指是對多年協調理解</h4> - -<p>就提名表格提及「我確認支持和認同由戴耀廷及區諾軒主導之協調會議共識，包括『民主派35+公民投票計劃』及其目標」，李指他沒有出席超區協調會，亦不知黃文萱有否出席，但承認當時想知道「嗰個協調嘅共識係啲乜嘢」，「因為喺我嘅概念，初選其實就係關於協調，如果我參與初選連協調嘅共識係啲乜都唔知嘅話呢，我好難繼續參與落去。」</p> - -<p>李指當時無問黃文萱、也無問戴耀廷或區諾軒，但曾問秘書處總幹事歐飛，因他對每區協調、選舉策略或形勢「好有認知」，「我問佢係最快嘅。」庭上早前顯示紀錄，李曾問歐飛「我想知道超區初選既規則係點？」，獲悉超區目標議席是「3+1」。</p> - -<p>萬德豪質疑李只是問及初選的規則而非共識，李指當時理解「啲規則係衍生自呢個共識嘅，都係字眼上問題」，認為他問有什麼規則要參選的人遵守，意思就是共識。萬問共識即是協議？李認為無衝突，指有共識去遵守規則也屬「協議咗嘅情況」。</p> - -<p>法官李運騰問，除了該些規則，李還知道初選有協議嗎？李指他不知道，強調其焦點和當時概念，就是「咁多年嚟初選嘅協調都係講緊個議席、配票嘅策略，如果就住依個目標有任何嘅協議，其實都係衍生一啲嘅規則，去約束參選人」。</p> - -<h4 id="李指不知公民黨記者會發言與初選協調共識有何關連">李指不知公民黨記者會發言與初選協調共識有何關連</h4> - -<p>李早前同意，曾出席3月30日公民黨「立法會選舉心戰室核心小組」會議，紀錄提及「上星期三各團隊聯合召開記招，各團隊認為成功為民主派設定選舉議程，力爭透過立法會選舉議會過半迫使政府落實五大訴求，為未來民主派繼續就選舉作出協調及合作提供基礎」，李指不記得當時是否確實用「基礎」一字。</p> - -<p>萬德豪續問，李看到上述提名表格條款時，有否想到在「心戰室核心小組」會議上提及，關於民主派協調的基礎？法官陳慶偉一度指問題很差勁，控方再問後李說「冇呀，太遙遠呀」，並指看到6月20日的條款時，不會想起3月會議提及的一個點，反而頗肯定他是基於向黨就初選規則追查所得到的認知。</p> - -<p>控方續指出案情，指李當時知道的協議不止是有關議席數量，李實遠比這知道得多，李不同意。陳慶偉續指，李除了知道超區目標議席為「3+1」，亦知道公民黨參與初選的基礎，是要在立會取得過半後否決財案，這亦是「莊嚴承諾」？李不同意，指「我唔知道公民黨講嘅嘢，同埋所謂初選協調嘅共識嘅 linkage 喺邊度」。</p> - -<h4 id="李稱無看過超區協調文件控方指出有看過-官質疑提問基礎">李稱無看過超區協調文件、控方指出有看過 官質疑提問基礎</h4> - -<p>李續指，不清楚提名表格條款中「民主派35+公民投票計劃」是指一份文件。萬德豪展示「35+立會過半計劃 民主派區議會（二）協調機制協議」文件，李指他無看過。萬續指，文件是由戴耀廷於5月12日以 WhatsApp 廣播發給超區參選人。法官李運騰即打斷說：「5月12日？他當時成為參選人了嗎？」萬說未，但指他是問李是否知道，李予信答他不知道。</p> - -<p>萬續向李指，他事實上曾獲發該文件，李不同意。萬再指至少李有看過該份文件，惟李運騰打斷，表示「抱歉萬先生，你有什麼證據基礎這樣說？你是代表控方，你指出案情時要有基礎」。萬指有證據公民黨有潛在候選人參選超區，李運騰指，「但坦白說，我看不到你有任何基礎指出該案情，你沒從他搜出這份文件、無法證明他在廣播名單上，你有什麼基礎？」，並再語帶無奈攤出雙手：「算了，你已問了，而他也答了。」</p> - -<p>李續在盤問下表示，無讀過戴耀廷於2020年4月至5月的文章，亦沒有興趣。控方一度指如李曾排鄭達鴻第二，會有興趣了解組織者的說法，惟李強調當時只是探討排鄭達鴻第二，「但係從來冇落實過」，亦不同意因此有讀過戴的文章。</p> - -<h4 id="李稱曾看過投票宣傳片稿但無留意楊岳橋說話發布後僅確實有看過自己部分">李稱曾看過投票宣傳片稿但無留意楊岳橋說話、發布後僅確實有看過自己部分</h4> - -<p>此外，就公民黨7月10日發布的初選投票宣傳片段，李指於6月20日拍攝前獲發一張「紙仔」要「拎住嚟背」。李早前稱拍攝前僅獲發自己講稿，不知道他人確實會說什麼，萬德豪今問李有否要求看其他人講稿，李稱「有嗰份稿」，他「唔記得好清楚」拍攝前有否讀過，「但係應該有。」</p> - -<p>就片中楊岳橋承諾若特首未能落實五大訴求，公民黨將否決政府法案和預算，萬問李看到時沒有提出反對？李說沒有，「因為我焦點擺咗喺自己講嗰幾句度」、無用心留意楊會說的話，又指當時不斷要記住自己的部分，「唔想有咁多NG」，以便更快完成工作，而楊拍攝時他不在場。</p> - -<p>李又指，片段發布前，僅曾在錄影後即時看過自己的回放（playback），他當時無表達需在發布前看全片。片段於7月10日發布，李指他有看過，但忘記有否「由頭到尾逐秒睇晒成段片」，並指據其處事手法，「我會即刻飛去睇吓自己拍成點、好唔好睇咁嘅」，故只能確實有看過自己的部分，至於楊岳橋談及否決財案的部分則不記得有否看到。控方質疑片段只長2分鐘，李指當時忙於拉票，「我十幾個鐘都喺條街度」，其餘時間也是睡覺和休息。萬再追問即李連2分鐘也懶得看？惟法官打斷指這就是李的答案。</p> - -<p>案件明早續審，李予信將繼續接受盤問。</p> - -<hr /> - -<p>案件編號：HCCC69/2022</p>獨媒報導李予信稱獲楊岳橋指示報名參選港島後被叫停、理解非鄭達鴻「Plan B」 李予信指楊岳橋否決財案「莊嚴承諾」未必兌現、不會跟黨立場投票 \ No newline at end of file +<p><strong>Erol Yayboke</strong>, Former Director, CSIS Project on Fragility and Mobility</p>Abigail Edwards, et al.When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it sparked the largest and quickest mass displacement of people since the Second World War. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/hkers/2023-10-12-seize-initiative-in-ukraine.html b/hkers/2023-10-12-seize-initiative-in-ukraine.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3ea809d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/hkers/2023-10-12-seize-initiative-in-ukraine.html @@ -0,0 +1,256 @@ + + + + + + + + + + Seize Initiative In Ukraine · The Republic of Agora + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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Seize Initiative In Ukraine

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Seizing the Initiative in Ukraine: Waging War in a Defense Dominant World

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Seth G. Jones, et al. | 2023.10.12

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Ukrainian forces retain the initiative in the war but advanced an average of only 90 meters per day on the southern front during the peak of their summer offensive, according to new CSIS analysis. Russia’s extensive fortifications — which include minefields, trench networks, and support from artillery, attack helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft — have slowed Ukrainian advances. In particular, Russia has expanded the size of its minefields from 120 meters to 500 meters in some areas, making Ukraine the most heavily mined country in the world today. Ukrainian military progress is still possible, but the United States and other Western countries need to provide sustained military aid and other assistance.

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Introduction

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The war in Ukraine has become a test of political will and industrial capacity between two competing blocks: allied countries aiding Ukraine, such as the United States and numerous countries in Europe and Asia; and axis countries aiding Russia, such as China, North Korea, and Iran. Despite Ukraine’s efforts to liberate territory illegally seized by Russia, offensive operations have been slow. Some policymakers have erroneously argued that poor Ukrainian strategy has contributed to the slow pace of operations. According to proponents of this view, the Ukrainian military mistakenly focused on conducting operations along multiple fronts rather than on a single front in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

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To better understand military operations in Ukraine, this analysis asks three questions. What is the state of the offense-defense balance in the Ukraine war? What factors have impacted Ukrainian offensive operations? What are the policy implications for the United States and other Western countries?

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Ukrainian operations raise the age-old question in warfare about whether it is easier for militaries to seize territory or defend it. This phenomenon is called the “offense-defense balance,” and it refers to the relative strength between the offense and defense in warfare. The main idea is that there are several factors, such as geography, force employment, strategy, and technology, that can influence whether the offense or defense has the advantage. When the offense has the advantage, it is generally easier for an attacking state to destroy its opponent’s military and seize territory than it is to defend one’s own territory. When the defense has the advantage, it is generally easier to hold territory than it is to move forward and seize it.

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This analysis utilizes several sources of information. To understand historical rates of advance, this assessment compiles data on offensive campaigns from World War I through Ukraine’s 2023 offensive. It also examines open-source data on fortifications, unit positions, and the attrition of military equipment. In addition, it uses satellite imagery and drone footage of the battlefield in eastern and southern Ukraine to understand the challenges of offensive operations. Finally, the authors conducted interviews with Ukrainian, U.S., and European military officials.

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The analysis comes to three main conclusions. First, defense has the advantage in the war. This reality should not come as a major surprise. Carl von Clausewitz wrote in On War that “defense is a stronger form of fighting than attack” and that “the superiority of the defensive (if rightly understood) is very great, far greater than appears at first sight.” Ukrainian forces averaged approximately 90 meters of advance per day during their recent push on the southern front between early June and late August 2023.

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Second, the reason for the slow pace of advance was not poor Ukrainian strategic choices, as some have argued. Instead, it was likely caused by a Ukrainian change in force employment, especially the deliberate adoption of small-unit tactics, and the lack of key technology such as fighter aircraft for suppression of enemy air defense and close air support. In addition, Russia constructed substantial defensive fortifications, including minefields, and utilized attack helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) against advancing Ukrainian forces.

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Third, Ukraine still retains the initiative in the war, and the United States and other Western countries should provide long-term aid packages that help Ukraine strengthen its defense and prevent or deter a Russian counterattack in the future. They should also provide additional aid to help Ukraine on offense to maximize the possibility that it can retake as much territory as possible from Russia. After all, one of the United States’ most significant adversaries, Russia, has been reduced to a second- or third-rate military power without a single U.S. military casualty. As many as 120,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, as well as over 300,000 wounded, and Ukrainian soldiers have destroyed a massive number of Russian weapons systems, from main battle tanks and fighter aircraft to submarines and landing ships. U.S. aid to Ukraine should continue even with U.S. support to Israel likely to grow following the October 2023 Hamas attack, since Russia, Iran, and their partners represent a significant threat to U.S. interests.

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The rest of this brief is divided into three sections. The first examines the state of the war and the strength of the defensive advantage in Ukraine. The second section explores the factors contributing to the defensive advantage. The third outlines several policy implications for the United States and other Western countries.

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Defense Dominance

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In early June 2023, Ukraine began a counteroffensive to retake territory illegally occupied by Russian forces in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts. Ukraine retains the operational initiative, but its relatively slow pace of advance and the trade-offs it has made to preserve personnel and equipment indicate that the defense has significant advantages.

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This section examines Ukraine’s efforts across three main fronts in summer 2023. First, Ukrainian offensive operations were primarily concentrated along the southern front, in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast and western portions of the Donetsk Oblast. Second, Ukraine was on the offensive in various locations along the eastern front in the Donetsk Oblast. Third Ukraine conducted raids across the Dnipro River in the Kherson Oblast, although it did not conduct larger military operation in the region. In addition, Russia and Ukraine were engaged in attacks using missiles, UASs, and special operations forces beyond the front lines in such areas as Crimea.

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Southern Front: Beginning in June 2023, Ukraine pursued two main lines of attack on the southern front: one toward the city of Melitopol and other toward the city of Berdiansk. Both cities are transit routes and logistical hubs for Russian forces throughout southern Ukraine and Crimea, the disruption of which represents significant strategic value to Ukraine. However, Ukraine’s progress on the southern front was slow, though deliberate.

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Ukraine’s most significant advance was around the town of Robotyne, in the direction of Melitopol. Ukraine advanced a total of roughly 7.6 kilometers from early June to late August 2023 — an average of approximately 90 meters per day. This advance was slow even when compared with historical offensives in which the attacker did not draw major benefit from surprise or from air superiority. The Ukrainian offensive did, however, continue to move forward, unlike many historical examples in which the attackers were thrown back.

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Ukraine also moved slower than in its previous offensives against Russia, in which it faced less organized defenses. In its 2023 counteroffensive, Ukraine faced a system of fortified defenses — extensively prepared trench lines, minefields, and other fieldworks. During its 2022 counteroffensive in the Kherson Oblast, Ukraine advanced 590 meters a day on average through prepared defenses — systems that include fortifications but that nevertheless were limited by time and resource constraints. Around the same time, Ukraine advanced rapidly in a counteroffensive in the Kharkiv Oblast, moving forward 7.5 kilometers a day on average and overcoming hasty defenses — systems constructed either in contact or when contact is imminent with opposing forces, and that therefore depend on enhancing the natural terrain.

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Figure 1 shows the average rate of advance for selected combined arms offensives, such as Galicia, the Somme, Gorzia, and Belleau Wood during World War I; Leningrad and Kursk-Oboyan during World War II; Deversoir (Chinese Farm) during the Yom Kippur War; and Ukraine in 2022 and 2023. Cases were selected from a universe of offensive campaigns lasting more than one day in which the attacker advanced, did not achieve substantial or complete surprise, and did not benefit from air superiority. In addition, cases were selected to ensure variation in geography, technology, time period, attacking and defending forces, and average advance. A much larger number of cases were also consulted, though not included in Figure 1.

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image01 +▲ Figure 1: Rates of Advance for Selected Combined Arms Offensives, 1914–2023. Source: CSIS analysis of open-source imagery of combat in Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv Oblasts; and Robert L. Helmbold, “CDB90,” in A Compilation of Data on Rates of Advance in Land Combat Operations (Bethesda, MD: U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990). CDB90 is based on information collected over a period of several years by the Historical Evaluation and Research Organization and revised by the U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency.

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Slow progress on the southern front does not mean that Ukraine is failing or will fail in its objectives. It merely indicates that seizing terrain is difficult, probably more so than in its previous offensives. It is possible that Ukraine’s rate of advance may accelerate if it can overcome Russia’s defensive positions near the current front lines or if the Russian military experiences operational or strategic collapse. Such changes in fortune are not unprecedented in modern warfare. The Allied breakout from Normandy in Operation Cobra followed 17 days of grinding combat in which General Omar Bradley’s First Army suffered more than 40,000 casualties to advance 11 kilometers, an advance rate of approximately 650 meters per day. It succeeded despite the exhaustion of several of the infantry divisions tasked with the initial penetration, eventually breaking through German lines and advancing another 11 kilometers in the three days following the initial assault. The success was achieved due to German defensive failings and Allied airpower and demonstrates that slow advances are not incapable of becoming rapid breakthroughs. While Ukraine lacks the offensive advantages the Allies enjoyed in Normandy, the Russian military has also not demonstrated the operational competence of the German Wehrmacht in World War II. The example suggests that an accelerated advance remains possible, if unlikely.

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image02 +▲ Figure 2: Russian Fortifications on the Southern Front. Note: Fortifications constructed before 2022 are not pictured. Source: Brady Africk, “Russian Field Fortifications in Ukraine,” Medium, bradyafrick.com, September 11, 2023.

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image03 +▲ Figure 3: Ukrainian Advance and Russian Fortifications around Robotyne, Ukraine. Source: CSIS analysis of Sentinel-2 imagery, maps from the Institute for the Study of War, and Africk, “Russian Field Fortifications in Ukraine.”

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Despite the slow progress, Ukraine advanced past the first of three lines of Russian fortifications in some areas along the southern front, as shown in Figure 3. It is possible that a Ukrainian breakthrough of the second line could accelerate the rate of advance, but Russia can probably still limit the strategic impact of a second breakthrough. Russia maintains a third defensive system consisting of a constellation of disconnected fortifications surrounding key cities in the region, as shown in Figure 2.

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Attrition ratios also suggest that the cost of seizing terrain has increased. As shown in Figure 4, Ukraine suffered greater attrition in its summer 2023 counteroffensive than in its previous offensives. According to open-source data, Russia lost only 2.0 fighting vehicles (defined as a tank, armored fighting vehicle, or infantry fighting vehicle) for each Ukrainian fighting vehicle destroyed, captured, abandoned, or seriously damaged in its current offensive. This ratio is less favorable to Ukraine than the 3.9 Russian vehicles lost per Ukrainian vehicle during its summer 2022 counteroffensive and 6.7 Russian vehicles lost per Ukrainian vehicle during the counteroffensive that drove Russia back from Kyiv in early 2022. While loss ratios and rates of advance are crude metrics for measuring Ukrainian progress, they together suggest that taking territory has been more difficult in the 2023 offensive than in Ukraine’s previous operations.

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image04 +▲ Figure 4: Loss Ratio of Russian to Ukrainian Fighting Vehicles. Source: Data compiled by Daniel Scarnecchia from Oryx, “Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine,” Oryx; and “Attack On Europe: Documenting Ukrainian Equipment Losses During The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine,” Oryx. Oryx data is not geolocated, and therefore the ratios are calculated from the total number of fighting vehicles confirmed to be lost across the entire country. The data are biased by the mode of collection, but the bias is assumed to be constant across the three Ukrainian offensives depicted. The 2022 Kyiv counteroffensive was coded as beginning March 16, 2022, the 2022 summer offensive as beginning August 29, 2022, and the 2023 summer counteroffensive as beginning June 4, 2023.

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Elsewhere along the southern front, Ukraine made limited advances south of the city of Velyka Novosilka in the direction of Berdiansk. Ukrainian forces liberated several towns in their advance south of Velyka Novosilka, engaging in significant fighting. However, Ukraine’s gains in the area represented only approximately 10 kilometers of advance from early June to late August 2023.

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Eastern Front: Unlike on the southern front, where Ukrainian offensive operations over the summer represented a new phase in the war, fighting on the eastern front has been continuous in some areas for over a year. Ukraine made marginal gains over the summer in a handful of pockets along the eastern front, particularly in the Donetsk Oblast. One example is around Bakhmut, where Russia has pressed since August 2022 for small territorial gains at high costs to personnel. Beginning in May 2023, however, Ukraine conducted a series of flanking counterattacks, retaking pieces of territory southwest and northwest of the city.

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Despite these successes, Ukraine has yet to approach key Russian positions beyond the current frontlines. These include the cities of Donetsk, Makiivka, and Horlivka, as well as the network of Russian fortifications that stretch between them. As CSIS assessed in June 2023, a Ukrainian attempt to push through these cities is unlikely because of the difficulties and likelihood of high casualties in urban warfare. For now, sustained Ukrainian operations on the eastern front have fixed large numbers of Russian forces that otherwise would have been available to reinforce Russian defensive efforts to the south.

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Unlike most other locations in Ukraine, Russian forces were involved in limited offensive operations in multiple areas along the eastern front over the summer. In addition to pushing back against Ukrainian gains in the Donetsk Oblast, Russia increased its presence near and attacks against the northern city of Kupiansk, which Ukraine liberated in September 2022.

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image05 +▲ Figure 5: Russian Fortifications on the Eastern Front. Note: Fortifications constructed before 2022 are not pictured. Source: Africk, “Russian Field Fortifications in Ukraine.”

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Dnipro Front: Throughout the summer, Ukraine conducted limited crossings of the Dnipro River in the Kherson Oblast to perform reconnaissance and raid Russian positions. These crossings vary in size, but they typically involved small groups of Ukrainian soldiers using speedboats to discretely cross the river and execute their missions quickly before returning across to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

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It is possible that Ukraine plans to establish and sustain bridgeheads across the river from which to launch larger military operations in the near future. Ukrainian military leaders stated their intent to set the conditions for future larger crossings, including by destroying Russian artillery that could target large river-crossing forces and clearing mines that could slow landing forces. However, even with proper preparation, amphibious assaults are one of the most complex and demanding operations a military can attempt. Any attempt to cross the Dnipro with a large number of forces would likely be discovered and contested by Russian forces in the first line of fortifications that spans from the Dnipro Delta across from the city of Kherson and up the Dnipro River northward. Moreover, even a successful crossing would require complicated logistical support and need to overcome a large number of fieldworks Russia has constructed along the major roads in the region, as shown in Figure 6. For now, Ukraine more likely intends its attacks to fix Russian forces in Kherson, preventing them from redeploying to the southern or eastern fronts.

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image06 +▲ Figure 6: Russian Fortifications on the Dnipro Front. Source: Africk, “Pre-2022 Field Fortifications in Russian-Occupied Ukraine.”

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Beyond the Frontlines: In addition to the fighting on the three fronts, the war has been marked in recent months by intensified missile barrages and escalating naval engagements. Since May, Russia has renewed its long-range UAS and missile attacks in Ukraine. Targets include a mix of critical infrastructure, command and control installations, and other military and civilian targets throughout Ukraine. For its part, Ukraine continues to conduct missile and UAS strikes against Russian military assets, headquarters, and strategic infrastructure in occupied territory. Ukraine has also conducted UAS attacks inside Russia. These attacks have been concentrated in the Bryansk and Belgorod regions near the western border with Ukraine, in Crimea, and in Moscow. On July 30, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that Russian territory was fair game: “Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair process.”

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With the termination of a grain export deal in mid-July, tensions escalated in the Black Sea region. Ukraine struck Russian targets — including diesel-electric submarines, air defense systems, amphibious landing ships, radar installations, and infrastructure, such as dry docks — in and around Crimea using UK-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles, UASs, special operations forces, and other weapons systems and forces. On July 17, Ukrainian UASs damaged the Kerch Strait Bridge used by Russia to move supplies and troops into Crimea. On August 24, Ukrainian special operation forces also reportedly conducted a nighttime raid against Russian positions in Crimea. In response to Ukrainian attacks, Russia withdrew the bulk of its Black Sea Fleet, such as attack submarines and frigates, from Sevastopol to other ports in Russia and Crimea.

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Over the summer, Russia also conducted a series of attacks against Ukrainian Danube ports that serve as hubs for the export of grain and other food commodities. According to Romanian officials, Russian UASs were flown near and occasionally inside Romanian air space to strike Ukrainian ports, such as Izmail and Reni, just a few hundred yards from Romanian territory. On several occasions, Romanian officials collected fragments from Russian UASs inside of Romanian territory.

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Debating Battlefield Performance

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Battlefield success hinges on a complex interaction of several factors, including force employment, strategy, technology, leadership, weather, and combat motivation. While Ukraine retains the initiative in the war, Ukraine’s military advance has been relatively slow. Why? This section examines four possible hypotheses: Ukrainian strategy, Russian defenses, Ukrainian technology, and Ukrainian force employment.

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Ukrainian Strategy: Some policymakers and analysts contend that poor Ukrainian strategy contributed to the slow pace of Ukrainian operations, though there is little evidence to support this argument. According to proponents, the Ukrainian military focused too much on conducting operations along multiple fronts, rather than concentrating forces on a single front in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The military objective in the south — and indeed a major objective of Ukrainian military operations more broadly — appeared to be pushing south to the Sea of Azov, cutting Russian occupation forces in two, severing the land corridor between Russia and occupied Crimea, and retaking such cities as Melitopol.

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Instead of focusing on a southeast axis, however, Ukrainian commanders divided troops and firepower between the east and the south. Some U.S. military officials advised Ukraine to concentrate its forces in the south and drive toward Melitopol to punch through Russian defenses. Likewise, some criticized the Ukrainian military for moving forward on multiple axes within Zaporizhzhia Oblast itself rather than focusing on one main axis. The argument about how and where Ukraine should concentrate its offensive efforts is, in part, a debate about force ratios. Proponents of focusing solely on the south argue that massing Ukrainian forces along a single axis in Zaporizhzhia would have allowed Ukraine to achieve the favorable force ratio necessary to generate a significant breakthrough.

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But this argument is unpersuasive for at least two reasons. First, Russian military leaders came to the same conclusion and prepared accordingly. They anticipated that Ukrainian forces would likely focus on the southern front and sent forces to fortify Melitopol and Tokmak, as well as other areas in Zaporizhzhia. Second, well-designed mechanized campaigns almost always progress on multiple axes, not just one. Advancing along a single axis allows the defender to fully concentrate on stopping that advance. In this case, the Russians would almost certainly have moved forces from other parts of the theater as rapidly as possible to stop the Ukrainian drive toward Melitopol. Instead, Ukrainian advances in Bakhmut and other eastern areas pinned down Russian forces since Russia was not prepared to lose Bakhmut.

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Actual force ratios across the long front lines in Ukraine are impossible to determine using open sources, but there is little reason to believe that Ukraine’s multifront approach was a mistake. To achieve favorable force ratios despite its smaller military, Ukraine would have had to move forces to the decisive point before the Russian defenders could react and surge their own forces to that area. But Russia anticipated that Ukraine would attack in Zaporizhzhia, prepared its most extensive networks of fortifications in the region as shown in Figure 7, and almost certainly planned to redeploy forces to reinforce against a Ukrainian advance there.

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image07 +▲ Figure 7: Construction of Russian Fortifications between February 2022 and August 2023. Source: Africk, “Russian Field Fortifications in Ukraine.”

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As a result, Ukraine likely could not have achieved more favorable force ratios even by massing its forces along one or two axes in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. While a more favorable force ratio is always desirable, evidence suggests that a higher concentration of Ukraine’s efforts along the southern front likely would have been met by a higher concentration of Russian forces in heavily fortified terrain.

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Russian Defenses: Another possible explanation for Ukraine’s limited progress is that Russian forces constructed and used defensive fortifications effectively. There is some evidence to support this argument. In advance of Ukraine’s offensive, Russia built the most extensive defensive works in Europe since World War II, with expansive fortifications in eastern and southern Ukraine. These defenses consist of a network of trenches, anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines, razor wire, earthen berms, and dragon’s teeth, as shown in Figure 8.

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image08 +▲ Figure 8: Multilayered Defenses North of Mykhailivka, Ukraine.

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Ukraine’s slow advance can be attributed, in part, to Russia’s successes using fortifications to defend against Ukrainian assaults. Across the entire front, Russian troops primarily fought from infantry trench systems. Russian forces in some areas, such as the 7th Guards Air Assault Division, were so thoroughly dug in that Ukrainian forces discovered carpets and pictures on the walls of captured Russian positions.

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Russia employed a variety of fortifications to slow the advance of Ukrainian vehicles. However, not all fortifications are created equal. One former Ukrainian commander belittled the effectiveness of Russian dragon’s teeth defenses in September 2023. Based on satellite imagery and other information, CSIS analysis in June 2023 similarly questioned the potential effectiveness of Russia’s dragon’s teeth given the varied quality in their installation and make.

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But Russia’s extensive use of mines effectively slowed Ukrainian advances. Ukraine is now the most mined country in the world after Russia expanded the size of minefields from 120 meters to 500 meters. The increased size and frequency of minefields complicated Ukrainian planning and limited the effectiveness of Ukraine’s equipment. For example, when the Ukrainian 47th Assault Brigade and 33rd Mechanized Brigade attempted to cross a minefield north of Robotyne on June 8, 2023, mine-clearing efforts were insufficient. Slowed or disabled by mines, Ukrainian vehicles came under fire from Russian attack helicopters, and Ukrainian soldiers were forced to abandon their equipment and retreat. The incident reportedly resulted in the loss or abandonment of at least 25 tanks and fighting vehicles, although some were later recovered. Drone footage and satellite imagery show a cluster of 11 vehicles damaged and abandoned in one location from the failed advance, as shown in Figure 9.

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image09 +▲ Figure 9: Damaged and Abandoned Vehicle from an Attempted Ukrainian Advance North of Robotyne, June 2023. Source: Screenshot of video release by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

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Minefields disrupted Ukraine’s offensive momentum and imposed constraints on Ukraine’s rate of advance. Russian minelaying increased the demand on Ukrainian reconnaissance and engineers and complicates military planning. As a result, Ukrainian operations in mined areas had to be slow and deliberate or risk trapping equipment and personnel on exposed ground.

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The terrain in Ukraine increased the effectiveness of Russian defenses. Rows of flat, open farm fields separated by tree lines characterize the southern front. Without air superiority, Ukrainian ground forces had to advance by crossing these fields with little natural cover to conceal their movement. In addition to laying mines, Russia targeted advancing Ukrainian troops and vehicles with artillery fire, attack helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft. Using thick summer foliage to their advantage, Russia concealed tanks, anti-tank units, and infantry units in the tree lines that border the fields to ambush Ukrainian forces.

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In urban areas, Russia used infrastructure to its advantage. Buildings and other structures provide cover to defending forces and enable ambushes. Russia also methodically destroyed roads and created obstacles in urban areas to disrupt the advance of Ukrainian vehicles and channel them into dangerous areas. For example, a Ukrainian assault in late July on the town of Staromaiorske along the southern front was reportedly slowed by a combination of such defenses.

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Ukraine’s advance was further complicated by the proliferation of sensors and rapid precision strike capabilities on the battlefield, especially long-range precision fires and UASs. Russia deployed significant numbers of small UASs in contested areas, and some Ukrainian sources reported losing 10,000 UASs every month, which demonstrated the sheer number of these systems being employed on the battlefield. The ubiquity of these systems makes it impossible to establish that sensor saturation and advanced strike capabilities provide a distinct defensive advantage, but there are good reasons to believe this is the case. Sensor saturation creates a “transparent battlefield” in which forces can be found and targeted more easily than in past decades.

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The advancement of precision fires and the proliferation of lethal UASs shorten the time it takes to strike enemy forces once they are located. In many cases, a UAS may act as both the sensor and the strike capability. Loitering munitions, for example, can circle battlefields until a target is acquired and approved for an immediate strike. On a transparent battlefield onto which an adversary can rapidly strike detected forces, attackers must distribute further, move more deliberately, make greater use of cover, and more tightly coordinate movement with suppressive fire in order to survive their advance. In contrast, defenders can take advantage of prepared fighting positions that are less exposed both to enemy detection and enemy fire.

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Ukrainian Technology: A third possibility is that offense was weakened by insufficient technology, especially weapons systems that would facilitate a breakthrough. There is some evidence to support this argument. Ukraine received significant military assistance from the West, which aided combat operations. Examples include artillery, main battle tanks, armored carriers, ground support vehicles, air defense systems, air-to-ground missiles, manned aircraft, UASs, coastal defense systems, and radar and communications. U.S.-supplied cluster munitions, which can cause devastation over a broader area than ordinary shells, were also helpful for Ukrainian forces. Ukraine used cluster munitions to target Russian troops running across open ground, either to flee or to provide reinforcements. However, Ukraine’s lack of fighter aircraft, disadvantage in fires, and limited enablers made it more difficult to break through Russian lines.

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Ukrainian Force Employment: Some have argued that the speed of Ukrainian advances was impacted by its military doctrine and tactical implementation, a combination known as “force employment.” There is some evidence to support this argument.

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Choices in how militaries use the soldiers and equipment at their disposal can permit attackers to advance despite the extreme lethality of defenders’ firepower or permit defenders to limit the gains of numerically overwhelming attackers. Effective force employment requires tight coordination between infantry, armor, artillery, and airpower at several organizational levels, as well as high levels of autonomy, initiative, and tactical prowess at lower echelons.

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Ukraine changed how it used its forces to reduce its losses while accepting an advance rate much slower than its leaders may have initially desired. There is little doubt that Ukraine’s initial force employment resulted in high rates of attrition. But it remains unclear why Ukraine’s initial force employment resulted in such high losses without generating sizable advances. Training, force structure, organizational culture, or lack of airpower all may have played roles, and the interaction between Russian defenses and Zaporizhzhia’s terrain may have forestalled a mechanized breakthrough independent of those factors.

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While granular data on Ukraine’s force employment is scarce, open-source information suggests a shift in tactics after its unsuccessful first assaults. Accounts based on interviews with combatants suggest a change in how Ukraine coordinated its infantry, armor, and artillery. Ukrainian operations in June 2023 appear to have been organized around larger maneuver units than later Ukrainian operations in the summer, which employed smaller infantry units supported by artillery and small numbers of tanks. Analysis by the Royal United Services Institute demonstrates that Ukraine can effectively integrate multiple combat branches at lower echelons.

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Ukraine also emphasized destroying Russian artillery as part of its changing offensive strategy. Open-source data shows that Ukraine greatly increased its destruction of Russian artillery systems in late June and early July following its initial failures to advance, as shown in Figure 10. This is consistent with some reporting on Ukraine’s changed operational approach. This appears to mark a shift toward destroying enemy artillery before advancing and away from the combined arms approach of advancing while simultaneously suppressing the enemy using artillery fire.

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image10 +▲ Figure 10: GeoConfirmed Data on Rates of Destroyed Russian Artillery (June 2023–September 2023). Source: Data from “Ukraine,” GeoConfirmed.org, September 15, 2023.

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These changes were associated with a significant decrease in Ukrainian losses. U.S. and European officials reported that Ukraine lost as much as 20 percent of the weapons sent to the battlefield in the first two weeks of the offensive, a rate that prompted Ukrainian commanders to reevaluate their tactics. After adopting an operational approach centered around small-unit probes and attrition by artillery and UAS strikes, Ukrainian equipment loss rates were cut in half, with approximately 10 percent of equipment lost in the next phase of operations. In a war of attrition, such a decrease in loss rates was probably seen by Ukrainians as worth the slow pace of advance.

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The key question of whether Ukraine’s initial mechanized assaults would have succeeded if executed with greater skill is unanswerable, despite remarks made by some military officials, political figures, and security analysts. Effective coordination between branches of arms might have allowed Ukraine to break through Russian lines. It is also plausible that Ukraine’s lack of air superiority on a sensor-saturated battlefield would have limited the benefits of such coordination. Previous analysis of World War II breakthroughs suggests that skillful implementation of combined arms tactics have mattered for successful offensive operations, but also that preponderance of firepower, operational maneuverability, speed, surprise, and air dominance have also influenced the likelihood of a breakthrough and exploitation. There is little reason to believe that more effective combined arms tactics would have been sufficient to achieve the breakthrough that Ukraine and its backers initially hoped for in the summer of 2023 without the advantages of surprise and air superiority.

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Policy Implications

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Opposition to providing further aid to Ukraine is building among some members of U.S. Congress, as highlighted in the September 2023 stopgap spending bill that did not include additional money for Ukraine. Some argue that the United States should concentrate exclusively on countering China in the Indo-Pacific and defending Taiwan. These officials contend that U.S. resources are finite, that weapons exports to Ukraine come at Taiwan’s expense, and that sustained focus on war in Europe benefits China. Some also argue that the United States should prioritize aid to Israel over Ukraine. Others maintain that every dollar spent on Ukraine is a waste of taxpayer money that could be better used on domestic priorities, such as improving healthcare, cracking down on illegal immigration, or combating the spread of fentanyl.

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But these arguments are misguided. Continuing aid to Ukraine is essential to prevent authoritarian leaders, such as Vladimir Putin, from achieving their revanchist aims. In fact, Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran have deepened their military, economic, and diplomatic ties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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U.S. allies and enemies alike see Ukraine as a test of Western resolve. The Ukrainian military still has the initiative in the war and continues to advance forward. Ukraine’s supporters can meaningfully impact two of the factors outlined in the previous section: Ukrainian force employment and technology. The fundamental challenge is that both take time. A war that continues to favor the defense is also likely to be protracted, since Ukrainian advances will likely continue to be slow.

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The United States and its Western allies need to be prepared to support a long war and to develop a long-term aid plan. They have already provided extensive training and intelligence to improve Ukraine’s force employment, including combined arms maneuver, air defense, special operations activities, intelligence, and the operation and maintenance of more than 20 military systems. This support needs to continue and adapt as the war evolves.

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In addition, Ukraine needs more and better technology in two respects. The first is long-term assistance that will help Ukraine strengthen its defense and prevent or deter a Russian counterattack in the future. Examples include mines, anti-tank guided missiles, air defense systems, stockpiles of munitions, counter-UAS systems, and area-effect weapons, such as artillery.

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The second type of assistance is aid that helps Ukraine on offense in the current campaign and maximizes the possibility that it can break through well-fortified areas and retake as much territory as possible from Russia. Examples include a steady supply of munitions; attack aircraft, such as F-16s; long-range missiles, such as MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS); and UASs that can conduct intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and strike missions.

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Based on current trends, continuing aid to Ukraine may cost roughly $14.5 billion per year. Figure 11 highlights what this might look like through the end of 2024. This aid has a highly favorable risk-reward ratio. One of the United States’ most significant adversaries, Russia, is suffering extraordinary attrition. As many 120,000 Russian soldiers have died, and perhaps three times that number have been wounded, along with several dozen Russian general officers. Ukrainian soldiers have destroyed substantial numbers of Russian military equipment, such as main battle tanks, armored and infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, artillery, surface-to-air missile systems, fighter aircraft, helicopters, UASs, submarines, landing ships, and a guided missile cruiser. And the United States has lost zero soldiers in the war.

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image11 +▲ Figure 11: U.S. Presidential Drawdowns for Ukraine (February 2022–September 2023) and Projected Drawdown Amounts (September 2023–December 2024). Source: “Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) Announcements,” Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller)/CFO, Accessed September 21, 2023.

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The war is now, in part, a contest between the defense industrial bases of the two sides: Russia and its partners, such as China and Iran; and Ukraine and its partners, including the United States and other Western countries. A decision by the United States to significantly reduce military aid would shift the military balance-of-power in favor of Russia and increase the possibility that Russia will ultimately win the war by seizing additional Ukrainian territory in a grinding war of attrition. Too much is at stake. As UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher said to President George H.W. Bush in the leadup to the First Gulf War, after Iraq had invaded Kuwait, “This is no time to go wobbly.”

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Seth G. Jones is senior vice president, Harold Brown Chair, and director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.

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Riley McCabe is a program coordinator and research assistant with the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS.

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Alexander Palmer is a research associate with the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS.

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Containing A Catastrophe

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The Race to Prevent a Wider Middle East War

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Tobias Borck | 2023.10.17

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As Israel prepares to launch a ground offensive in Gaza, there is a real risk that the war could escalate into a wider conflagration. Efforts to contain the conflict will test key relationships across the region.

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It is already clear that Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October was a watershed moment. It was the deadliest attack on the State of Israel since its existence; its scale and brutality make it paradigm-shifting. Looking to past conflicts – the Gaza wars of 2008/09, 2012 and 2014, for example, or the Israel–Hezbollah war in 2006 – therefore has only limited value. A week after the attack, there are two broad scenarios for how this crisis could unfold.

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Two Scenarios for Escalation

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In the first scenario, the Israel–Hamas war could stay contained to Gaza and southern Israel. The launch of Israel’s impending attack on Hamas “from the air, sea and land” will have unpredictable consequences. But there is still the possibility that the war could remain limited in scope, at least geographically.

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In the second scenario, the war could expand beyond southern Israel and become a regional conflict. The escalation logic of this scenario is plain: the unfolding war in Gaza could lead other groups that define themselves through their resistance or enmity towards Israel – most notably armed Palestinian factions in the West Bank; Hezbollah in Lebanon; Iranian-backed groups in Syria, Iraq or elsewhere; or even Iran itself – to conclude that they must get involved lest they lose legitimacy. A major attack on Israel by any of these actors would likely be met with a furious response from the Israeli military, which would in turn further fuel escalation in the region.

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Thus far, the clashes and skirmishes that have occurred in the West Bank and across the Israeli-Lebanese and Israeli-Syrian borders have remained relatively limited, indicating a level of intentional restraint on all sides. Nevertheless, the escalation scenario should not be dismissed as alarmist. Much will be written in the coming months about how it was possible for Israel to fail to see Hamas’s 7 October attack coming. One conclusion is likely to be that there was a failure of imagination: Israeli and other intelligence services may have been aware of various different Hamas actions or of Israel’s own vulnerabilities, but the dots were not joined together – it wasn’t just that no one thought that an attack of such scale was possible, but that no one had thought of such an attack at all. Policymakers around the world, including in the UK, now have a responsibility not to commit the same mistake and to take a potential escalation of the conflict – even beyond all precedent – seriously.

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To be clear, even the first scenario is catastrophic. The war in Gaza, like the attack that provoked it, has already reached unprecedented levels of brutality, bloodshed and destruction. The Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, together with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had no hand in Hamas’s actions at all, are in mortal jeopardy. Even among the combatants – both Hamas and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) – casualties must be expected at rates not seen before. Yet still, the second scenario is much worse.

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Regional De-Escalation Upended – and Tested

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Hamas’s attack has upended the regional trend towards de-escalation and reducing tensions that has prevailed in the Middle East over the past three years. The notion that governments in the region could agree to put their differences aside, rebuild diplomatic relations and focus on shared interests in economic development – all while leaving the leaving the root causes and underlying conflicts that led to instability and tensions in the first place unaddressed – has been exposed as untenable. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict – or, for that matter, the ongoing conflicts in Libya, Syria and Yemen, or the socio-economic cleavages in many other countries in the region – cannot be ignored or put in boxes, no matter how much governments in the region and beyond may want to focus on more positive agendas.

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Governments across the region are likely to come under immense popular pressure as their populations rally in support of the Palestinians in Gaza

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At the same time, however, the Israel–Hamas war and the real threat of its escalation into a regional conflagration will now test the new relationships that have been formed over the past three years – between Israel and the Gulf Arab states, between Israel and Turkey, between Turkey and Egypt and the Gulf Arab states, and between the Gulf Arab states and Iran. Governments across the region, from Ankara and Cairo to Riyadh and even Tehran, have a shared interest in at the very least containing the current crisis to remain within the confines of the first scenario. Many of them are likely to come under immense popular pressure as their pro-Palestinian (though not necessarily pro-Hamas) populations rally in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. But the drivers for their push towards de-escalation, including the conclusion that escalation only begets more instability in the region, and the desire for stability and economic development, remain unchanged.

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Iran’s precise role in Hamas’s 7 October attack will likely become clearer in the coming weeks and months, but it is incontrovertible that Tehran now has significant agency in determining whether the war escalates or not. Threatening statements by Iran’s foreign minister, warning Israel – or “the Zionist entity” as he calls it – to halt its operations in Gaza or risk suffering “a huge earthquake,” should be taken very seriously. It is important to note that Iran does not fully control its partners in the region. Hamas, Hezbollah, the groups it supports in Syria and Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen all have their own political agendas and the ability to make decisions. But Tehran certainly has more influence over them than anyone else.

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The US and its Western allies, including the UK, are already working to deter Iran. The rapid deployment of a US aircraft carrier group to the Eastern Mediterranean in the days after 7 October, now joined by two Royal Navy ships, is surely meant to send at least two distinct messages: to reassure Israel, and to deter Iran and its partners across the region.

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Others can do more than send deterring signals to Iran – and are doing so. On 11 October, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke with Iran’s President Ibrahim Raisi about Riyadh’s efforts to “stop the ongoing escalation”; it was the first-ever publicised phone call between the two men. Other governments across the region, especially in the Gulf, are likely similarly seeking to convince Iran not to push for further escalation.

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Short- and Long-Term Challenges for Regional Governments

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The Gulf Arab states, together with Turkey and Egypt, also play an important role with regard to the first scenario and the ongoing war in Gaza. Their urgent calls on Israel to moderate or even end its operations in Gaza are unlikely to be heeded anytime soon, but they can nevertheless have a meaningful impact.

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In the longer term, Western capitals must recognise that they cannot turn their backs on the Middle East, however much they might want to

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Egypt, which shares the only border with Gaza that is not directly controlled by Israel, is under enormous pressure to allow refugees to enter its territory. Thus far, Cairo has refused. It worries that an influx of refugees could destabilise the Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt has struggled to contain a low-level insurgency for the past decade, and further undermine the already struggling Egyptian economy. Perhaps most importantly, it fears that refugees could end up staying in Egypt indefinitely, unable to return to Gaza either due to the destruction wrought by the war, or because Israel – once in control of the territory – might not allow them to come back. It is incumbent upon the US, other Western governments and the richer Gulf Arab states to work with Cairo to alleviate these concerns, including by putting pressure on Israel to allow passage across the Gaza–Egypt border in both directions.

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Meanwhile, Qatar, and perhaps Egypt and Turkey, appear to be the only international actors (besides Iran) that could feasibly exercise a degree of influence over Hamas with regard to the Israeli hostages taken on 7 October. Doha, Cairo and Ankara have all been able to engage with Hamas’s political leadership in the past. However, it is unclear whether their interlocutors still have any real influence on the situation on the ground.

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In the longer term, regional countries – most importantly Saudi Arabia, but also Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE and others – will have a crucial role to play in helping to rebuild a Palestinian political leadership that can legitimately speak for the Palestinian people. With the 7 October attack, Hamas has completely disqualified itself from ever being regarded as a legitimate political entity – whether by Israel or most of the international community. At the same time, Hamas’s attack has also once again exposed the Palestinian Authority in its current form as woefully ineffective. Once the current war ends, there must be a re-engagement with the Middle East Peace Process, which has been completely neglected in recent years by all sides. Riyadh and others in the region who are committed to building a more stable Middle East are best placed to help identify and then build up a Palestinian leadership that is strong enough to eventually rebuild Gaza, seriously govern the West Bank and work with Israeli counterparts (who must also be found and empowered) towards lasting solutions.

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The West Cannot Ignore the Middle East

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If Hamas’s attack has upended – or at the very least interrupted – the regional drive towards de-escalation, it has also highlighted that the West’s approach towards the region in recent years is unsustainable. Policymakers in the US and the UK and across Europe have sought to deprioritise the region, partly due to more urgent crises demanding their attention – most notably Russia’s war in Ukraine – and partly driven by a fatigue with the intractability of the region’s conflicts.

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In the coming weeks and months, Washington, London, Brussels and others must work with partners across the region to prevent escalation. They must persuade Israel – likely behind closed doors – to exercise as much restraint as possible, and support and empower regional leaders in their efforts to stave off a wider conflagration. In the longer term, they must recognise that they cannot turn their backs on the Middle East, however much they might want to. Focusing on geopolitical challenges that are identified as more strategically important – confronting Russia, pivoting/tilting to the Indo-Pacific and dealing with China, to name but a few – is hardly possible when the Middle East is spiralling into turmoil.

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Tobias Borck is Senior Research Fellow for Middle East Security Studies at the International Security Studies department at RUSI. His main research interests include the international relations of the Middle East, and specifically the foreign, defence and security policies of Arab states, particularly the Gulf monarchies, as well as European – especially German and British – engagement with the Middle East.

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UK In N. European Security

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The UK Contribution to Security in Northern Europe

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Ed Arnold | 2023.10.17

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This Policy Brief is to explain why the UK has chosen to explicitly prioritise the security of Northern Europe following Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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Introduction

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Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine was an inflection point for European security. For the UK, it prompted a “refresh” of its defence, security and foreign policy. The March 2023 Integrated Review Refresh (IR2023) concluded that “the most pressing national security and foreign policy priority in the short-to-medium term is to address the threat posed by Russia to European security … and denying Russia any strategic benefit from its invasion”. Underpinning this ambition, the Refresh committed the UK to “lead and galvanise where we have most value to add, giving particular priority … to the contribution we can make in northern Europe as a security actor” (p. 11).

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The purpose of this Policy Brief is to explain why the UK has chosen to explicitly prioritise the security of Northern Europe following Russia’s war against Ukraine. It identifies exactly where the UK is best placed to lead and galvanise to address the current and likely future Russian threat. There is no common definition of “Northern Europe” among Allies, so the Brief defines the region collectively as the sub-regions of the Arctic, the North Atlantic, the High North and the Baltic Sea region, extending to Estonia – the location of the UK-led NATO multinational battlegroup.

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The explicit prioritisation of Northern Europe is a natural evolution of UK policy, and the increased investment in the region addresses both immediate security requirements – the acute Russian threat – and future ones, as rapidly melting ice in the Arctic creates viable sea lines of communication directly linking the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific – priority one and two geographic “strategic arenas” (pp. 3, 9) for the UK respectively. Given this, Northern Europe is a “transitional theatre” for the UK, where enhanced engagement now can produce value and strategic advantage for the UK – and its allies – in the future.

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The UK offers unique value to Northern Europe as a security actor for three principal reasons. First, the UK, as a regional geopolitical heavyweight, acts as a substantial backstop to the US presence and engagement. Second, the UK provides specialist military capabilities, spanning warfighting and sub-threshold, such as anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and other sub-sea capabilities that are in short supply in Europe and best match the Russian threat. Third, the geostrategic position of the British homeland – within the North Atlantic – is critical to the successful execution of NATO’s new regional defence plan for “the Atlantic and European Arctic” and “the Baltic and Central Europe”, alongside its transatlantic reinforcement plan. With growing and ambitious security commitments to Northern Europe, the UK is sending a strong message of reassurance to Allies and a strong signal of deterrence to Russia, and to China as a “near-Arctic state”, in the context of a growing partnership between the two powers in the Arctic.

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The research for this Brief is drawn from two main sources. First, a review of UK government and NATO policy documents, including the 2021 Integrated Review and Defence Command Paper alongside their 2023 updates, and the UK’s Arctic and High North policies. Second, four expert-led roundtable discussions held between April 2022 and June 2023 and attended by Norwegian, UK and US officials and academics, in London, Oslo and Washington, DC. It is augmented with analysis of official government announcements, research papers and media reporting. This Policy Brief is part of a two-year transatlantic security dialogue in collaboration between RUSI, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The project is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and focuses on the Norwegian, UK and US roles in securing Northern Europe.

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Why is the UK Prioritising Northern Europe?

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The explicit prioritisation of Northern European security is an evolution of UK policy over the past decade. The Arctic, and the High North in particular, have become central to UK strategic thinking, and they are the only regions to receive specific policy documents. UK objectives in the region are a blend of hard and soft security issues, majoring on: the protection of UK and Allied critical national infrastructure (CNI); reinforcing the rules-based international order and enforcing freedom of navigation; and managing climate change (pp. 10, 11). Central to the UK approach has been a similar security policy outlook and working with likeminded Allies and partners, in particular Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) members, on Euro-Atlantic security challenges, the utility of military force and the pervasive Russian threat. Indeed, UK engagement has increased significantly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; multilaterally through NATO, and minilaterally through the JEF and the Northern Group of Defence Ministers. These engagements are underpinned by bilateral and trilateral agreements, including most significantly the strong mutual security guarantees offered to both Finland and Sweden during the NATO membership process. The UK is also heavily reliant on the region for energy, with Norway being the UK’s primary gas supplier.

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The acute Russian threat in Northern Europe binds Allies together. Despite Russia severely weakening and fixing a large portion of its land forces in Ukraine, the country’s naval capabilities remain largely intact, through its Northern Fleet, including strategic nuclear forces, and its Baltic Fleet – notwithstanding heavy losses (p. 6) for two Russian Arctic brigades. Russia also intends to militarily reinforce the region in response to NATO enlargement. This short-term conventional military weakness is likely to push Russia to rely more heavily on hybrid activity and nuclear signalling to achieve its objectives, which may become a potential source of conflict escalation, and which feature heavily in its 2022 Maritime Doctrine. Furthermore, some European intelligence agencies, such as the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service, assess that Russia could still exert “credible military pressure” on the Baltic states, and its military capabilities near the Estonian border could be “quantitatively reconstituted in up to four years” (p. 11).

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As NATO orientates its new defence posture to defend “every inch” (p. 6) of NATO territory, the UK is galvanising its northern flank into the most secure Alliance region, a region that is continually the target of Russian hybrid aggression and exposed to persistent conventional and nuclear threat. The rationale for the UK’s strategic focus in the region and how this is perceived by the regional actors has been summarised thus:

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Given that the United Kingdom shares historical, cultural, and geopolitical ties with the Nordic countries, the UK would benefit from having all Nordic countries within NATO. As relatively small countries, the Nordics would certainly benefit from the UK’s support, especially related to logistics, intelligence sharing, and the security provided by the nuclear umbrella. If combined with the UK’s capabilities and focus, this unified North would outrank any other European force structure and would help secure both the Eastern and Northern Flank of NATO.

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The UK is the European power best placed to lead and galvanise NATO’s northern flank and support the full integration of Finland (and Sweden) into the Alliance, both through providing strategic depth and its capabilities (military, non-military and command enablers), and through its significant defence and security engagement in the region.

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The UK as a Backstop for US Engagement and Presence in Northern Europe

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The US is the indispensable security partner for Northern Europe, a region that has a strongly transatlantic outlook. For Nordic states, and to a lesser extent Baltic states, strategic depth is secured primarily through NATO and the Article 5 security guarantee, and augmented by bilateral and trilateral agreements that bind the US to the region. For example, Norway’s defence relies on a denial ambition until Allied (US) reinforcements are in position. Moreover, Norway’s role as a reception, staging and onward integration location for US reinforcements will become more important as Finland, and soon Sweden, joins the Alliance. Indeed, the inclusion of Finland and Sweden in NATO defensive plans will provide increased strategic depth, especially with the scale of forces that Finland can mobilise at short notice, but Nordic defence will remain heavily reliant on follow-on forces from the US. Therefore, the fundamental risk that security actors in Northern Europe must manage is the possible reduction of attention and corresponding drawdown in US assets to redeploy to the Indo-Pacific as US security concerns there grow, especially if the war in Ukraine ends on terms that benefit NATO, or a US president less sympathetic to European security is elected in 2024. This possibility is a strategic risk for Northern Europe, not only in terms of overall mass in the form of combat-capable brigades, but also in terms of specialist capabilities such as ISR. In the short term, the UK is the only European country realistically able to support Europe’s “ISR gap” in Northern Europe, and it is unlikely to contribute more brigades to NATO’s New Force Model for the remainder of the decade.

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As a major regional power, the UK’s engagement and capabilities are best able to mitigate any potential US shortfall and provide enhanced strategic depth. US Arctic priorities are motivated by strategic competition, whereas the Nordic states prioritise defence and deterrence against Russia. The UK is positioned on a scale between the two, and can play an important role in bridging between them. Specifically, the UK is best placed to lead in two areas, both of which already enjoy high levels of cooperation with the US, providing critical continuity.

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First, NATO considers Russia’s ability to disrupt Atlantic reinforcement in the High North a “strategic challenge” (p. 4). The UK has traditionally secured the Greenland–Iceland–UK gap with ASW capabilities and, more recently, through the UK–US–Norway trilateral interoperability (p. 21) of the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft (MPA), which increases availability of a critical ISR capability and allows it to operate further north. The ability to operate further north is a growing requirement, as Russia has refitted multiple vessels with the 3M-54 Kalibr missile, which gives a longer range to precision strike operations, allowing Russian assets to enjoy better protection of its Arctic and High North defensive bastions, in turn drawing NATO assets further north. To meet this challenge, Norway is hosting NATO submarines (p. 22), mainly from the UK and the US, in new Norwegian facilities to enable operations to push further north to match Russia’s reach. Moreover, the UK has established a land and littoral presence in the High North, now operating from a new facility in Norway called Camp Viking. With a multi-domain presence and specialist capabilities, including logistic and intelligence enablers, the UK is the best placed European nation to secure end-to-end transatlantic reinforcements from the US to NATO’s eastern front, thereby delivering strategic depth.

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Second, the UK can lead on re-establishing and maintaining strategic stability, consistent with “a new long-term goal to manage the risks of miscalculation and escalation between major powers, upholding strategic stability through strategic-level dialogue and an updated approach to arms control and counter-proliferation” (p. 13). The UK, as a European nuclear power, will be a valuable actor in the region, which also hosts Russian strategic and non-strategic nuclear forces. Moreover, the UK is well placed to support Finland and Sweden as they join a nuclear alliance and, for the first time, have a direct role in nuclear policy and planning, by providing a greater understanding of deterrence, risk reduction and arms control.

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Galvanising NATO Command and Control

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Finland, and eventually Sweden, joining NATO fundamentally changes defence and security policy in Northern Europe. Finland’s membership has already doubled the NATO border with Russia, and the inclusion of Sweden will expand the Supreme Allied Commander Europe’s land area of operations by more than 866,000 km2. While this obviously presents significant opportunities for NATO, there are also considerable challenges. The UK has an interest in being a security “integrator” in the region by supporting its newest members and building coherence between Nordic and Baltic regional plans and Alliance command and control (C2). Here there is a significant opportunity for the UK to lead and galvanise and make a major contribution to Euro-Atlantic security.

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The enlargement creates NATO C2 headaches for Northern Europe, as does the timing gap between the two countries joining. Finland has joined under the command of Joint Force Command (JFC) Brunssum, alongside the Baltic states, Poland and Germany. However, Norway (and likely Sweden when it joins) falls under JFC Norfolk in the US, which is responsible for the North Atlantic, including the Arctic. This arrangement (p. 14) creates C2 incoherence between the “European Arctic and Atlantic” and “Baltic and Central Europe” defence plans, which will make their execution more difficult and create potential friction precisely when the Nordic states are finally united in NATO, and it could set back growing defence integration efforts between them. Integrating NATO’s regional plans and Nordic–Baltic security policy more broadly will be critical to their delivery. Specifically, better integrating Finland and Estonia would best serve this purpose, securing the Baltic Sea and containing Russia and denying it freedom of manoeuvre in wartime between St Petersburg and access to the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad.

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UK engagement and interests straddle the Nordic and Baltic states through the JEF, the Northern Group of Defence Ministers, and close bilateral security cooperation with both Finland and Estonia – the latter being the location of the UK-led NATO multinational battlegroup. The July 2023 Defence Command Paper Refresh stated:

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As the Alliance looks to welcome in two new members, the UK will also lead the collaboration amongst Allies to shape a revised Control and Command structure, with a specific focus on Northern Europe – the regional area of greatest importance to our homeland defence (p. 62).

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As an established European framework nation, the UK – known for its C2 ability, structures and maturity – would be well placed to manage Finland and Swedish integration and C2 coherence in Northern Europe. During the Cold War, the UK was a C2 enabler for NATO, emphasising strengths in the naval and air domains, through Allied Forces Northern Europe and UK Command through Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces, Northern Europe. Today, the UK hosts both NATO Maritime Command (MARCOM) and JEF C2 through Standing Joint Force Headquarters, which, since the Russian invasion, has deployed nodes and liaison officers across Northern Europe.

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UK Leadership of the JEF

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The JEF has developed into a key mechanism for the UK to provide leadership in Northern Europe and galvanise the Nordic and Baltic states together to optimise defence and deterrence against Russia. In 2022, the JEF came of age. The first-ever JEF leaders’ meeting was held the day after Russia’s invasion, followed by two more during the year, which included a commitment to developing a 10-year vision ahead of the 2023 leaders’ summit.

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The September 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea brought into sharper focus the security requirement to better protect CNI, and highlighted the risk of attacks specifically to undersea assets. This was reinforced by the October 2023 damage to the Balticconnector natural gas pipeline and communications cable between Finland and Estonia likely caused by “external activity”. This is an area where the Russian threat is acute. NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security, David Cattler, has warned of an increase in Russian submarine and underwater activity, including “actively mapping allied critical infrastructure both on land and on the seabed”.

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To respond, the JEF will focus activity on countering hybrid aggression in its area of operations of the North Atlantic, High North and Baltic, especially in relation to the protection of CNI, including underwater cables and pipelines. Here, the UK provides leadership, through committing to protect Allied CNI, alongside upholding freedom of navigation and international norms in the region. Immediately following the Nord Stream attacks, the UK announced that two Multirole Ocean Surveillance ships would be sped into service. This capability, alongside Astute-class submarines, mine-countermeasure vessels and RAF MPA, will be critical to protecting underwater CNI. Moreover, MARCOM hosts NATO’s new Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell, and the UK has signed new bilateral agreements such as the UK–Norway strategic partnership on undersea threats. The UK, as a regional geopolitical heavyweight, is ideally situated to engage with the JEF collectively and individually; to link its agenda to other key regional actors, such as France, Germany and Poland; and to develop greater JEF coherence between the myriad of security institutions in Northern Europe, including NATO, the EU, the Northern Group of Defence Ministers, Nordic Defence Cooperation and the Arctic Security Forces Roundtable.

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Conclusion: The UK Orients to Future Challenges in Northern Europe

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The explicit prioritisation of Northern Europe addresses both immediate UK security requirements – defence and deterrence against Russia – and future challenges – China’s increasing presence in the Arctic and High North as a “near-Arctic state”, and growing Sino-Russian cooperation. The IR2023 declared that the prosperity and security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific were “inextricably linked”, upgraded China as an “epoch-defining challenge”, and cemented the Indo-Pacific “tilt” as a permanent pillar of UK foreign policy (pp. 9, 3, 22). A rapidly heating Arctic climate will make the Northern Sea Route increasingly navigable during the summer and the Transpolar Sea Route will likely be usable by 2050 (p. 36). This transformational geopolitical change will directly link the UK’s two priority geographic “strategic arenas” – politically, economically and militarily – which will fundamentally impact UK and Euro-Atlantic security. Given this, NATO may have not only to contend with Russia, but also with a more assertive Chinese presence in the Arctic and High North. Therefore, heavily investing in Northern Europe now will enhance UK strategic advantage, reassure Allies and deter future threats.

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Ed Arnold is a Research Fellow for European Security within the International Security department at RUSI. His experience covers defence, intelligence, counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, within the public and private sector. His primary research focus is on the transformation of European security following Russia’s war on Ukraine. Specifically, he covers the evolving Euro-Atlantic security architecture, the security of northern Europe, and the UK contribution to European security through NATO, the Joint Expeditionary Force, and other fora. Ed has a particular interest in UK National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Reviews.

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Taliban’s Campaign Against IS

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The Taliban’s Campaign Against the Islamic State: Explaining Initial Successes

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Antonio Giustozzi | 2023.10.25

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This paper examines the strategies employed by the Taliban in response to the threat posed by the Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K) in 2021–22.

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Despite a recent decline, the Islamic State (IS), and its South Asian branch IS-K, remains one of the most resilient terrorist organisations on the planet – as recent reports of it planning attacks in Turkey and Europe show. Research carried out in late 2021 to mid-2022 with Taliban and IS members shows that IS-K represented a serious challenge for the Taliban in Afghanistan in this period. While they initially dismissed the threat from IS-K, the Taliban soon developed capabilities to confront it – these capabilities, and IS-K’s responses to them, are the subject of this paper.

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The paper outlines five key counter-IS techniques that the Taliban adopted after August 2021: indiscriminate repression; selective repression; choking-off tactics; reconciliation deals; and elite bargaining.

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While their initial response was to indulge in indiscriminate repression, the Taliban gradually moved towards an approach focused on selective repression, with the aim of leaving the local communities in areas of IS-K activity relatively untouched. They also considerably improved their intelligence capabilities in this period. By the second half of 2022, the Taliban had succeeded in destroying enough IS-K cells and blocking enough of the group’s funding to drive down its activities and contain the threat. The Taliban also experimented with reconciliation and reintegration, and managed to persuade a few hundred IS-K members in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province to surrender, contributing decisively to the dismantling of most of IS-K’s organisation there.

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However, there were also significant flaws in the Taliban’s approach. This paper finds that their selective approach to tackling IS-K struggled to find firm footing in the absence of a solid system of the rule of law and of external oversight. The Taliban’s leadership appear to be struggling to figure out how to ensure that the lower layers of their security apparatus follow orders to avoid arbitrary violence. The paper further shows how the Taliban have failed to follow through with their initially promising reconciliation and reintegration efforts.

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For its part, IS-K showed remarkable organisational resilience in response to the rising tide of the Taliban’s counterterrorism efforts. The group transformed itself into an underground organisation, relinquishing all its bases and moving most of its assets to northern Afghanistan. With this approach, and true to the reputation of its founding organisation, IS, IS-K in Afghanistan managed to survive, even when faced with potentially existential challenges, such as a crackdown on its financial hub in Turkey. IS-K has come increasingly to rely on online activities, including for recruitment.

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The Taliban learned faster than most observers expected them to in response to the challenge of IS-K, and scored significant successes. The longer-term prospects of their counter-IS efforts, however, remain dependent on IS-K continuing to struggle financially, because the drivers of mobilisation into its Afghan ranks remain largely unaddressed.

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Introduction

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The Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August 2021. As practitioners of insurgent warfare, they had to start learning almost overnight ways of doing counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, especially against what emerged as their main challenger, the Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K). Their early efforts have been characterised as “brutal” and “ineffective”. Others have stated a belief that that the Emirate would not be able to successfully tackle IS-K on its own. As this paper will show, the Taliban initially relied largely on ruthless tactics. However, as shown in a 2023 paper by this author, despite the (very limited) financial means and human resources available, in subsequent months the Taliban’s approach has not been exclusively brutal and at the same time was quite effective, at least in the short term. Indeed, the Taliban, widely seen during their “jihad” (2002–21) as a force of nature, were in reality even then already displaying considerable organisational skills.

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This empirical research paper forms part of the EU-funded STRIVE Afghanistan project, and aims to further discuss and analyse how the Taliban applied their organisational capital to countering IS-K. The guiding questions that this paper seeks to answer are: how did the Taliban structure their post-August 2021 counter-IS mix of tactics, how successful were these in fighting IS-K, how did IS-K adapt, and did the Taliban try to achieve long-term stability, seeking non-kinetic approaches and reducing reliance on violence? Since the Taliban do not frame their counter-IS effort with reference to the Western understanding of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, the author will also avoid referring to such terminologies, and will instead examine their specific tactics. As noted in a rare study of non-Western responses to terrorism, Western theorisations of terrorism and counterterrorism might not be very useful in analysing such efforts by non-Western states and actors.

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The discussion focuses on how, after August 2021, the Taliban practised violent repression, both indiscriminately, against people not directly involved in the armed opposition, and selectively, against active insurgents. It also covers how the Taliban have tried to choke off the armed opposition, denying it access to population, supply routes and financial flows. The paper finally looks at whether there may be signs of awareness among the new Taliban elite that their long-term self-interest might be better served by developing reconciliation programmes of some kind, or by reaching some elite bargain.

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There are not many large-scale counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts that have altogether eschewed all forms of ruthless violence, so analysing a “counter” effort requires some careful qualifications. The first useful distinction here is between selective and indiscriminate violence. A regime that focuses its violence on its enemies can deliver a clear message that those who challenge it will meet a terrible fate, while political quietism (accepting the status quo without resistance) is rewarded. Encouraging quietism while targeting “extremists” (defined as anti-ruling system elements) should therefore be a winning approach, even if utterly violent. The question that follows, then, is why ruling elites should be concerned about achieving anything more than an efficient (selective) repression. This is a pertinent question especially where a violent conflict has already taken off. At that point, some form of repression can no longer be avoided. Following a long-term pattern of indiscriminate violence makes non-violent alternatives hard to buy into for any opponent. However, even choosing selective violence does not necessarily make non-violent alternatives easy to pursue. Different actors within any government will each make their own assessments on where the boundary between violent extremists and quietists may lie, resulting in divisions within a state apparatus and a ruling elite.

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Another important distinction is that violent repression may or may not be accompanied by efforts to negotiate local reintegration deals, with the collaboration of local elites. Such deals are often deemed to be a more effective long-term way of stabilising a polity than relying solely on violence, not least because they can potentially create bonds between ruling and local elites, eventually resulting in the latter gaining sufficient leverage with the centre to effectively constrain its use of arbitrary power. Similarly, repression can also be accompanied by elite bargaining, that is, power sharing.

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There are also ways of choking off armed opposition with no political concessions and no negotiations, without using extreme violence. Large-scale military deployments, for example, which, in the presence of adequate levels of manpower, can be achieved without reliance on indiscriminate use of firepower, can result in the capture of territory and assertion of control over the population, reducing or denying the ability of the opposition to recruit new members, access sanctuaries, train and transfer supplies. In other words, the aim of such large operations need not be to destroy the enemy, but can be to choke it off. An even better example of choking-off tactics is financial disruption, where violence plays a very small part. These tactics are particularly appealing to ruling elites, but are not necessarily within their reach. It takes an army considerably superior to the opposing forces to monopolise control over territory and population, and it takes a sophisticated intelligence apparatus to block financial flows towards the armed opposition. Moreover, choking-off tactics can be a protracted affair and even an inconclusive one, depending on the skill of the opponents. An armed opposition could continue operating under more adverse conditions even with little or no access to the wider population, and new channels for transferring cash to rebels can always be devised by creative sanctions busters.

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This is a reason for ruling elites not to write off political tactics completely. There are other reasons as well for not writing off local reintegration deals and elite bargains. One possible incentive to invest in reconciliation or an elite bargain is the awareness within the ranks of the ruling elite that ruthless repressions, even when efficient in the short term, do not successfully remove the roots of opposition, but instead allow it to resurface generations later, or even sooner, leaving the state vulnerable. Another possible incentive is that repressions can drag on inconclusively and go through critical phases, with the final outcome being uncertain and involving a high cost to the ruling elites. In such contexts, softer alternatives to ruthless repression can gain traction.

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This paper is comprised of three chapters. The first examines the state of IS-K and the type of threat it presented to the Taliban as they took power, and how the Taliban assessed that threat. The second chapter discusses in detail how the Taliban sought to meet the IS-K challenge, examining each tactic in turn: indiscriminate repression; selective repression; choking-off tactics; local reconciliation and reintegration; and elite bargaining. The third and final chapter examines IS-K’s response to the Taliban.

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To protect sources, neither the names of the interviewees nor their exact roles in their organisations have been disclosed. IS-K interviewees are classified as either “commanders” (leaders of a tactical group of five to 30 men) or “cadres” (district and provincial-level leaders, or managers of support departments such as logistics or finance, among others).

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Methodology

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With the Taliban–IS-K conflict still under way, any findings of this paper can be only partial and preliminary. There are also clear limitations to the research methodology adopted: research was by necessity limited to oral sources, with limited support from news reports and policy-oriented analysis – which are also often partial – and no access to primary written sources, such as the Emirate’s records, or of course to any internal IS-K documents.

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Researching this topic required a number of methodological compromises given that conducting primary research in a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is extremely difficult. IS-K recruiters and members were, of course, the most difficult to speak to, primarily because they have increasingly been in hiding. As a result, the body of data collected is inevitably incomplete and follow-up on specific themes was often not possible. The analysis contained in the paper inevitably reflects this. However, it should be noted that when reached and given a proper introduction by a third party, such as a relative, friend, colleague or respected individual, even members of IS-K proved quite talkative. This should not be a surprise, as the literature shows that members of violent extremist organisations are typically proud of being members and often brag about their own activities, even when they are supposed to be operating deep underground, as in Europe. The risk faced by this type of research is therefore not one of not obtaining access. There are other risks, however: that interviewees might be affected by a social-desirability bias, resulting in overstating their achievements, capabilities and/or resources; or by reverse causation, leading sources to provide prejudiced information about rival organisations. Mitigation measures are discussed below.

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Taliban officials were quite prudent in their answers, but thanks to their internal tensions and differences, Taliban interviewees were also quite often willing to discuss embarrassing details and to acknowledge limitations in their counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts. Taliban interviewees were often dismissive of the IS-K threat and overstated the progress made in countering that threat, while IS-K sources did the exact opposite. This was expected, and it was dealt with by interviewing multiple sources within both the Taliban and IS-K, and by spreading the research effort over 20 months, allowing for the time-testing of responses. This was particularly important and useful as it provided validation points for the reliability of the different sources. For example, initialTaliban dismissals of IS-K were proved wrong, as were IS-K’s triumphalist assumptions made in early 2022. The data points provided by sources could only be assessed against one another over time, as in the case of claims about IS-K moving to northern Afghanistan.

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While the author takes into account the literature relevant to the topic and the period, this paper relies mainly on empirical data collected through interviews. It is based on a series of 54 interviews, carried out between August 2021 and April 2023. Multiple interviews on both sides of the conflict and with non-aligned individuals, such as elders, clerics, former IS-K members and hawala traders, allowed for greater cross-referencing opportunities. The details are provided in the table below.

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image01 +▲ Table 1: Breakdown of Interviews. Source: Author generated.

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The research methodology was a hybrid of investigative journalistic and ethnographic interviewing. The questionnaires were adapted to each interviewee; there were, in fact, 54 different questionnaires. Questions evolved as knowledge of ongoing trends and developments expanded.

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The interviews were commissioned to three Afghan researchers in local languages (Pashto, Dari and Uzbek) and took place mostly in Afghanistan, with some interviews taking place in Pakistan. Two of the researchers were members of the Salafi community, a fact that facilitated access to IS-K sources and reduced risk to researchers to acceptable levels. All of the researchers had a background in journalism and/or research, had participated in previous research projects with a similar typology of interviewees, had been trained to undertake research with a similar methodology, and had contacts or personal/family relations with Taliban and/or IS-K members, which proved crucial in reaching out and gaining access to interviewees.

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The risk that respondents might use the interviews to influence external observers or to misrepresent the facts was assumed from the start as a precautionary measure. This risk was mitigated by using different types of interviewees – such as members of either the Taliban or IS-K, elders of local communities where IS-K operates, clerics and traders – who represented contrasting points of view; by interviewing individuals separately and without them being aware of other interviews taking place; and by inserting questions to which the answer was already known, to verify responses. It proved particularly helpful to present interviewees with information gathered from other sources, such as local elders saying that IS-K members were struggling financially, and ask them to comment. Most IS-K sources could not avoid some degree of openness about apparently negative developments concerning IS-K. Public-domain sources, such as media reports and analytical studies, were also used, where available, to check the credibility of interviewees. The researchers chosen did not know one another, to avoid the risk of researcher collusion to manipulate the content of interviews, for example by inventing content to produce whatever they might have believed the project team wanted to hear. This is always a risk when interviews are carried out by field researchers while the project is being managed remotely. The field researchers were also informed that the purpose of the effort was simply to ascertain facts, and that there was no premium placed on specific findings. Finally, the data collected was validated as much as possible via consultations with independent experts and government and international organisations monitoring developments in Afghanistan, who, given the sensitivity of the topic, asked to remain anonymous.

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The interviewees were told that their answers would be used in an open-access publication, the type of which was not specified. The interviews were carried out in part face to face and in part over the phone – some interviewees were in locations that were difficult to access. All the interviews have been anonymised and all data that could lead to the identification of interviewees has been removed.

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I. The Taliban and IS-K: Sources of Enmity

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The conflict between the Taliban and IS-K did not start in 2021. There was tension between IS-K and the Taliban from the moment IS-K was launched in January 2015. By May 2015, the two organisations were at war, competing over territory, but also over the loyalty of hardened jihadists, be they Afghans, Pakistanis, Central Asians or others. The elements most influenced by the global jihadist agenda were those most likely to be attracted by IS-K, even if its Salafist profile discouraged many who would otherwise have been interested. Several hundred members of the Taliban defected to IS-K, contributing much ill feeling. The fighting, mostly concentrated in Kajaki and Zabul (southern Afghanistan), Nangarhar and Kunar (eastern Afghanistan) and Darzab (northwestern Afghanistan), continued throughout the 2015–21 period and led sometimes to atrocities.

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In those years, the two rival insurgent organisations had their columns of fighters clashing in a kind of semi-regular warfare. The better-disciplined IS-K had an edge against poorly trained local Taliban militias in 2015–18, but the tables turned in 2019–20, when the Taliban started deploying their crack units against IS-K’s strongholds in eastern Afghanistan. After that and until August 2021, IS-K stayed away from confronting the Taliban head on and sought safety in more remote parts of the east, counting on the fact that the Taliban were still primarily busy fighting the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

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For some time after the violence between the two organisations started in May 2015, IS-K did not produce much propaganda. It was only in more recent years that IS-K set up a large-scale propaganda campaign against the Taliban, challenging their credentials, both as a jihadist group and their religious credentials, especially what IS-K saw as their lax implementation of Islamic law. Friction between adherents of Salafism, a purist form of Islamic fundamentalism, and Hanafis – Deobandis in particular, but also Sufis – helped to feed the conflict. Although the Deobandis are described as being influenced by Salafism, Salafis see them as practitioners of an impure form of Islam. This is even truer of Sufis. Although IS-K initially downplayed its Salafi–jihadist ideology in the hope of attracting a wider range of supporters, after its appearance in 2015, it gradually took on an increasingly hardline Salafi character. The Taliban, on the other hand, became more and more diverse over time, incorporating, in particular, many members from a Muslim Brotherhood background, while the top leadership remained predominantly Deobandi-influenced, with a strong influence of Sufism as well. While a significant number of Salafis joined the Taliban’s jihad between 2003 and 2015, after 2015, most were attracted to IS-K.

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II. Sizing Up the IS-K Challenge in 2021

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IS-K’s Manpower

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The extent to which IS-K represented a challenge to those in power in Afghanistan, be they the previous regime or the Taliban, has long been a topic of discussion. The UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, for example, which relies on assessment provided by member states, has provided constantly fluctuating numbers over time. According to IS-K’s own internal sources, IS-K leaders had at their disposal in July 2021 a force of up to 8,000 men. Of these:

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    Just over 1,100 were in Pakistan.

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    The remaining force was mostly concentrated in eastern Afghanistan (Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan), where some 3,700 IS-K members included the bulk of its combat force, some village militias and much of its administrative structure, handling finances and logistics, keeping track of recruitment, making appointments and deciding transfers, planning training and indoctrination, and other tasks. From this area, moving back and forth to and from Pakistan was easy due to the porosity of the nearby border.

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    The other important concentration was in the northeast, largely in Badakhshan, with almost 1,200 members in that region. This second concentration included well-trained combat forces and some administrative facilities, but was not very active militarily during this period, and instead sought to keep a low profile in central Badakhshan, chiefly in the Khastak valley.

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    Apart from a few hundred IS-K prison escapees, en route to the east, the rest of the force of IS-K (some 1,300–1,400 men) was at this point mainly spread around the south, the southeast, the region surrounding Kabul, the west, and in the main cities, where it operated underground, recruiting or organising terrorist attacks in urban areas. In several provinces, such as Kapisa, Logar, Ghazni, Paktia, Paktika and Khost, IS-K only had a thin layer of some tens of members, tasked with recruitment, intelligence gathering and preparing the ground for expansion in the future.

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These figures are largely comparable with those provided by the intelligence services of member states to the UN, which put the membership of IS-K at 4,000 for the latter part of 2021. The figures collated by the UN monitoring committee likely relate to the more visible component of IS-K, that is, full-time fighters based in Afghanistan. As detailed by IS-K sources, of the numbers quoted above, around two-thirds (some 4,600) were fighters based in Afghanistan. A proportion of these were essentially village militias (hence quite invisible to external observers), and a few hundred members of terrorist hit teams.

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IS-K sources were claiming mass defections from Taliban ranks in the early months following the fall of Kabul. Such defections would be surprising in light of the morale issues affecting IS-K at that time (see below), and indeed this appears to have been a massively inflated claim. When asked about defections from the Taliban to IS-K after August 2021, IS-K sources had little concrete information to offer and could only cite five lower-level Taliban commanders in Kunar, three in Nangarhar and one in Khost who defected to IS-K. One source in the Emirate’s local apparatus acknowledged that defections from the ranks of the Taliban to IS-K did take place in the early post-takeover months, but had been limited in numbers. The most important defection to be confirmed, at least by local sources, was that of commander Mansoor Hesar with five sub-commanders and 70 fighters in Nangarhar in late August 2021. Another source within the Taliban confirmed only that in the early days post-takeover, two Taliban commanders from Dur Baba and Hisarak defected to IS-K: Mullah Yakub and a’lim Shamsi. Overall, there were few defections (especially when the total manpower of the Taliban is considered), and they added little to IS-K strength and included no high-profile individuals, thus offering little with which the IS-K propaganda machine could work.

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IS-K’s Finances

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IS-K’s efforts in this period seem to have been marred by financial shortcomings. Sources suggest that the group’s finance operations were badly mismanaged in late 2021 to early 2022. During this period, however, and in line with Taliban allegations, IS-K sources claimed connections with elements of Pakistan’s army and intelligence, translating into logistical help and support for IS-K’s efforts to raise money from “Islamic charities” in Pakistan. It has not, however, been possible to verify these claims.

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IS-K Morale

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When the Taliban took over, the idea of giving up the fight was reportedly widespread within the ranks of IS-K. Nearly all of the seven former IS-K members interviewed stated that they had been attracted to IS-K to fight “American crusaders”, not the Taliban. This could have contributed to a decline in morale after August 2021 – although respondents might also have wanted to downplay any hatred for the Taliban that they might have harboured. The Taliban also benefited from war weariness in the country, including within the Salafi community. Even elders critical of the Taliban expressed happiness that the fighting had stopped. The defeats that the Taliban inflicted on IS-K in 2019–20 had also left a mark. A further indicator of low morale was the refusal of many detained members of IS-K to rejoin the group after Afghanistan’s prisons were emptied in the chaotic final days of the Islamic Republic. IS-K sources at the time claimed that thousands of escapees from government prisons had rejoined their ranks after the chaos of August 2021. It is clear, however, that, contrary to these claims, many did not rejoin at all, but went into hiding, trying to stay clear of both IS-K and the Taliban (see below on the lack of impact of escapees on IS-K’s strength). It may be added that all former members were reportedly aware that they could contact IS-K via Telegram to rejoin, but many did not take this opportunity. Taliban officials interviewed by the International Crisis Group quantified the escapees who rejoined IS-K in the “hundreds”, rather than in the thousands alleged by some sources.

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How the Taliban Assessed IS-K

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The Taliban’s initial neglect of the threat represented by IS-K was not due to any form of tolerance. Many senior Taliban viewed IS-K as a proxy organisation, established or manipulated by the security services of the previous regime and/or by those of neighbouring and regional countries, Pakistan in particular, with the intent of splitting the insurgency and undermining the Taliban. The Taliban thought that, with the previous regime gone and the war won, IS-K would be critically weakened by the disappearance of a critical source of support. Moreover, the Taliban’s belief was that IS-K lacked a mass base:

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The problem is the Salafi ulema and mullahs, who inoculate the seed of hypocrisy and a very negative view of Hanafism in their Salafi followers … With the normal Salafi villagers, who don’t have any connection with Daesh [IS-K] and with the [Salafi] ulema, [the Taliban’s] relations are very good.

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There was also a belief that people had joined IS-K because of the salaries it was able to pay, thanks to generous funding from foreign supporters.

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The Taliban leadership, therefore, initially tended to underestimate the threat represented by IS-K. At the same time, while IS-K was not perceived as a strategic threat in August 2021, it was nonetheless considered a resolutely hostile and irreconcilable organisation of “khawarij”, against which the officials of the Emirate were ordered to take “aggressive and serious” action.

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III. The Taliban’s Counter-IS Effort

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This chapter will discuss the five key counter-IS techniques that the Taliban adopted after August 2021, as outlined in the Introduction: indiscriminate repression; selective repression; choking-off tactics; reconciliation deals; and elite bargaining.

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Indiscriminate Repression

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The Taliban have in the past argued that indiscriminate revenge-taking and repression on the part of Afghan and US security forces in 2001–04 drove many into the ranks of the insurgency. These views were supported by the elders of insurgency-affected areas. Perhaps because very few local Taliban officials were active with the organisation in those years, they seem oblivious today to the obvious lessons that should have been derived from that experience. Indeed, some Taliban officials have sought to undermine IS-K by trying to crush its supporting networks and milieus. Many Taliban cadres had been fighting IS-K before, and had developed a deep hatred for the organisation, which emerges from virtually all the interviews that the research team carried out. Some also harboured a strong hostility towards the Salafi community, from which they knew the bulk of IS-K’s Afghan members came. Some Taliban equated the Salafi community with IS-K. The fact that the Taliban had experienced serious friction with Salafis since the expansion of their insurgency to the east in 2008–09 helped to strengthen these negative views.

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In some cases, indiscriminate repression was a standalone tactic. The best example of this approach in the early wave of post-takeover repression was Kunar’s governor, Haji Usman Turabi, who epitomised the tendency to conflate Salafism and IS-K. Turabi is nowadays acknowledged by members of the Taliban to be “ideologically against Salafism” and to have “killed several Salafi mullahs”. Turabi believed he knew where the main areas of support for IS-K were, and moved to crush local supporting networks and to shut down Salafi madrasas and mosques. All this led to outrage against him, and the Salafi ulema sent a delegation to Kabul to complain.

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In other cases, indiscriminate repression was coordinated with other counter-IS tactics. While attempting to undermine IS-K operations in Jalalabad, which was a key centre of IS-K’s campaign of urban terrorism, the Taliban targeted IS-K underground networks and sympathising milieus in Nangarhar. This campaign was initially very violent. A cadre who gained notoriety here for his ruthless approach to IS-K was Dr Bashir, who became head of the Taliban’s intelligence services, the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), for Nangarhar province in September 2021, and served in that position throughout 2022. Bashir shut down most of the Salafi madrasas and mosques of Nangarhar. Under Bashir’s leadership, the Taliban in Nangarhar adopted a proactive approach, with large-scale operations and extensive house-by-house searches, detaining many. Many extrajudicial executions of suspects took place under his tenure. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported 59 confirmed executions of IS-K suspects, mostly in Nangarhar during October to November 2021. Human Rights Watch indicates that more than 100 suspects were killed between August 2021 and April 2022 in Nangarhar. Salafi community leaders confirmed in February 2022 that in October to November around 100 members of the community were killed in this wave of violence, mostly in Nangarhar. Among them were senior Salafi preachers. Others fled or went into hiding.

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It seems clear that Bashir was orchestrating much of the violence, seemingly with the intent of intimidating IS-K support networks and the surrounding milieus – perhaps even the entire Salafi community – into negotiating deals with the Emirate that would guarantee them security in exchange for cutting off relations with IS-K. This approach has similarities with what some of the strongmen of the previous regime had been doing, such as Abdul Raziq in Kandahar, who managed to force local Taliban to negotiate with him after years of relentless and extreme pressure. The Taliban’s reconciliation effort is discussed more fully below.

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Selective Repression

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The outrage noted above in relation to Haji Usman Turabi’s indiscriminate repression in Kunar led to the Emirate’s authorities deciding to sack him and appoint in his stead Mawlavi Qasim, from Logar, who had served as shadow governor of Kunar during the Taliban’s insurgency (2002–21). Qasim was not popular in Kunar, where the local Taliban base demanded that a local Talib be appointed governor. He appears to have been chosen by Kabul because of his readiness to comply with their request that he avoid unnecessarily antagonising the Salafis, hence transitioning towards more selective repression. The Emirate’s leadership went ahead, even as a very unhappy Turabi threatened to split from the Taliban with his followers.

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Turabi’s removal suggests that the leadership in Kabul was seriously concerned about the reaction of the Salafi ulema. However, transitioning towards selective repression was never going to be a smooth path. Even if indiscriminate repression lessened after 2021, much damage had been done, as the repression entrenched the sense in the Salafi community that the new regime posed a critical threat to the community.

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Moreover, the new policy of selective repression that followed Turabi’s dismissal was not particularly popular with Taliban officials. Within the Taliban ranks there was denial that indiscriminate abuse had taken place. In the words of a police officer:

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The Islamic Emirate always told the normal Salafi villagers [that is, not associated with IS-K] that it doesn’t have any problem with their sect, unless they support the enemy of Afghanistan, the Daesh khawarij … Those Salafi people arrested or killed by the Taliban, they had some kind of connection and relation with the Daesh khawarij.

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Even looking forward, doubts persisted that the new policy was appropriate. One GDI officer commented: “I have doubts [about some of the Salafi ulema and mullahs], but we cannot take any kind of action because I don’t have proof … the Taliban leadership in Kabul is trying not to create problems for Salafi ulema and elders in Kunar”.

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Some other officials were more explicit in their criticism. As one police officer commented, “The ideologies of Salafi and Daesh are the same, then why they shouldn’t support Daesh?”, implying that the entire Salafi community was a security threat. This officer advocated the closure of all Salafi madrasas and schools and criticised what he viewed as the Emirate’s soft approach, dictated by the fear of driving more Salafis into the arms of IS-K.

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Indeed, surrendering IS-K members did warn the Taliban to avoid antagonising the Salafi community, on the grounds that doing so would drive members towards IS-K. Despite this, outside Kunar, Taliban officials continued closing Salafi mosques and madrasas and detaining Salafis, affecting the entire Salafi community. At the end of 2022, Salafi sources alleged that the Taliban had decided to take over Salafi madrasas in southeastern Afghanistan (that is, installing Hanafi principals to run them and replacing many teachers and professors); in universities, teachers accused of being Salafis were dismissed. Taliban and IS-K sources both confirmed these actions. In December 2022, according to Salafi sources, the Taliban took partial control of a madrasa in the Shuhada district of Badakhshan, and in early February 2023, a large-scale Taliban crackdown in Badakhshan led to raids on three local Salafi madrasas and bans on Friday prayers in 10 mosques.

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The quantitative and qualitative growth of the Taliban’s GDI was inevitably going to be instrumental in the implementation of the new directives and in making repression more selective. From the start, rather than investing in protecting every possible target from IS-K attacks, the Taliban opted to focus on infiltrating IS-K cells in and around the cities. Given the limited resources available (the entire annual 2022/23 state budget being just above $2.63 billion, or 48% of what it had been in 2020), this appears to have been a sound approach. As a result, a major focus of the Taliban’s effort throughout 2022 was the expansion and consolidation of the GDI’s network of informers throughout the IS-K-affected area. During 2022–23, the Taliban were able to carry out multiple successful raids on IS-K cells, mostly in Kabul, but also in other cities. Dr Bashir was credited with quickly setting up a vast network of informers and spies in the villages and in Jalalabad, which led to the destruction of numerous IS-K cells. The impact appears to have been obvious, as attacks stopped, although other techniques, such as local negotiations and the targeting of supporting networks, were also used (see below). On social media, IS-K repeatedly warned its members about the Taliban infiltrating its ranks, implicitly acknowledging its difficulties.

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However, there was some obvious evidence of the GDI’s networks being slow to reach areas where IS-K had not originally been expected to operate. One example is a rocket attack from Hayratan into Uzbekistan on 5 July 2022. This was carried out by three Nangarhari members of IS-K, who were able to hide in a safe house in Mazar-i Sharif for seven months. These outsiders should have attracted the attention of the GDI; the fact that they did not highlights how Taliban intelligence gathering in mid-2022 was still weak in this area.

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Another necessary tool for a full transition towards selective repression is the establishment of a functional system of the rule of law. When the Taliban authorities claimed to “have proof” of mosques and madrasas supporting IS-K, including confessions from surrendering IS-K members, such allegations were disputed by Salafi advocates. The Taliban disregarded the advocates’ complaints: “There were some complaints from some Salafi ulema regarding the banning of their madrasas and mosques, but we don’t care”, said one source. In reality, the standards of proof were quite low. A source in the Kunar GDI implicitly acknowledged this: “In Kunar province we have warned Salafi followers that if the Islamic Emirate had a small doubt about any madrasa or mosque spreading propaganda about Daesh, we would close it and will inflict a heavy punishment on the madrasa’s principal or on the mosque’s imam”.

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The low standards of proof predictably resulted in the crackdown continuing on and off, even if not as dramatically as before. At least, the excesses of the Nangarhar death squads of October and November 2021 were not repeated on a comparable scale in 2022.

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Choking-Off Tactics

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In addition to repression, another key approach taken by the Taliban to countering IS-K in recent years has been choking-off tactics. Typical examples of such tactics include cutting off an insurgency’s supply lines, or the financial flows supporting it, or its access to the population. The Taliban should have been familiar with this: one of the major debates between Kabul and Washington in 2006–21 was over the US’ inability or unwillingness to force Pakistan to cut the supply lines of the Taliban. That failure, many argued, made the war unwinnable.

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While it would have made sense for the Taliban to destroy IS-K’s bases in the far east of Afghanistan in order to disrupt the group’s ability to maintain its influence in eastern Afghanistan, they had limited manpower available as they were taking over the Afghan state in the summer of 2021, with just some 70,000 men in their mobile units as of September 2021. The Taliban’s Emirate had to concentrate thousands of its best troops in Panjshir from early September 2021, where it faced the resistance of local militias and remnants of the previous regime’s armed forces, gathered into the first new armed opposition group to rise after the regime change, the National Resistance Forces. Thousands more troops were busy securing the cities and sealing the border with Tajikistan. The scarcity of manpower in this period is highlighted by the fact that in the months following the takeover, there was only a very thin layer of Taliban armed forces present in most rural areas. In the average district, the Taliban were only able to deploy 20 to 30 men, who guarded district-centre facilities and carried out occasional patrols, riding motorbikes on the roads. They were rarely seen in the villages. While a process did begin of Taliban supporters, reserves, sympathisers and relatives of Taliban members joining the Emirate’s armed forces, it took several months to absorb these untrained or poorly trained individuals into the forces. Moreover, plans for the security sector were initially quite modest, as the Emirate’s leadership decided to keep the size of its armed forces relatively small, for several reasons:

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    The easy victory obtained by the Taliban in Panjshir in September.

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    The fact that IS-K was viewed as a marginal actor due to its low profile (see “How the Taliban Assessed IS-K”, above).

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    The positive attitude shown to the new regime by all neighbouring countries, except for Tajikistan (which was hosting the National Resistance Forces), was making it hard for armed opposition groups to find a safe haven and external support.

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    The limited fiscal base of the Emirate.

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Indeed, Taliban sources circulated the news that the new army would be small, with as few as 40,000 men in combat units and another 20,000 in support and administrative roles. The police force was planned to be 40,000–60,000 men, of whom some 5,000 would be in a special force called Badri 313. These plans soon changed, however, and by January 2022 the Emirate had upgraded its plans for the army and police, overseeing a gradual expansion of the army towards a target of at least 150,000 men. It seems likely that the resumption of IS-K activities in the cities and in the east contributed significantly to this decision.

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The Taliban therefore delayed launching any large operation in the east. They seem to have understood that large military sweeps without the ability to hold territory afterwards are pointless, if not counterproductive – possibly as a result of having observed the failure of such tactics when used against themselves before August 2021. By March 2022, the Taliban were finally able to launch their first relatively large operation in Kunar, with the intent of forcing IS-K to fight for its bases. Initially, they seem to have thought that by threatening the few fixed bases IS-K had in the far east, they would force IS-K to stand and fight, and inflict major losses. According to a local Taliban source, before August 2021, IS-K had access to “every district of Kunar” and had “very active military bases and training centres”. But the insurgents avoided contact, leaving their bases behind and pulling deeper and deeper into the upper valleys. A Salafi a’lim (religious scholar) offered a similar assessment for Dangam district, saying that IS-K had controlled about 30% of the territory before the Taliban takeover, but that most IS-K members moved out after August 2021. The GDI expected to need another military operation, even deeper into the valleys, to “finish IS-K off”. By April 2022, however, the Taliban realised that IS-K had given up its last vestiges of territorial control in Kunar without a fight.

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Whether or not this was initially part of their plans, the Taliban considered that they had achieved an important objective: although IS-K tactics made it impossible for the Taliban to eliminate the group, asserting control over territory and population would still allow them to choke off IS-K. A Taliban cadre in Kunar said in April 2022 that IS-K’s opportunities to approach potential recruits had been greatly reduced, as it had been forced to go underground and to downscale operations.

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The Taliban’s pervasive presence on the ground also allowed the GDI to improve its mapping of IS-K’s presence countrywide. By March 2023, for example, the Taliban claimed to fully know where IS-K cells were operating in Kunar. This choking-off tactic therefore also contributed to enabling more selective repression.

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The other main choking-off tactic used by the Taliban against IS-K was financial disruption. Hawala traders were saying in late 2021 and early 2022 that Taliban authorities (the GDI, but also the National Bank) were increasing pressure on them. At that time, the Taliban had not yet worked out how to effectively block hawala traders from transferring money for IS-K (or any other hostile actor), and so relied on intimidation and implementing existing rules for registering transactions – woefully ignored under the previous regime – to achieve impact. Visits from Taliban patrols served as reminders of the danger of cooperating with IS-K. While these tactics could not completely stop the flow of cash for IS-K from Turkey (where the main financial hub of IS-K was located), they do not seem to have been pointless. IS-K sources reported that by September 2022, IS-K could only rely on a very limited number of hawala traders and a few smugglers who were taking cash for IS-K from Pakistan into Afghanistan. Later in the year, financial transfers were complicated further by a Turkish government crackdown on IS-K networks in Turkey. It is not clear whether the Turkish crackdown was the result of intelligence provided by the GDI, or of the Emirate’s “diplomatic” engagement. In any case, as an IS-K source acknowledged, the group’s expansion into the north was insufficiently funded as a result.

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These efforts appear to have had some impact. One IS-K source claimed in May 2022 that earlier financial flow problems had been fixed, but there was evidence to the contrary. Salaries paid to frontline fighters, at $235 per month in 2022, were lower than in 2015–16, when they were reportedly as high as $600. Although the central leadership of IS continued to promise massive funding increases for the future, in 2022, according to one of IS-K’s financial cadres, it cut the IS-K budget to its lowest level ever.

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The Taliban’s Reconciliation Deals

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As noted above, Dr Bashir was not simply interested in wreaking havoc in IS-K-supporting networks and milieus. Having gained a position of strength through his crackdown, Bashir moved forward with local negotiations with community elders to undermine the rival organisation. The Taliban had themselves been subject to reconciliation efforts to co-opt some of their ranks when they were fighting their “jihad”, although it is not clear what they made of these efforts, which were in any case poorly implemented by the Afghan government of the day. Bashir is now seen by Taliban officials as having been a “very active chief for Nangarhar GDI department” and as having had a “very good connection with villagers and elders in every village and district of Nangarhar province”.

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The Taliban were probably aware of the role played by Salafi elders in the recruitment of IS-K members, or perhaps presumed such a role, based on their own experience as insurgents. Several surrendered IS-K members acknowledged that many Salafi elders in Nangarhar had previously encouraged villagers to join IS-K. IS-K teams had regular meetings with elders, encouraging them to mobilise villagers. There was reportedly a high level of pressure on individual members of IS-K to invite friends, relatives and neighbours into the group. It was standard practice for Salafi village elders supporting IS-K to be trusted to introduce new members without the standard additional vetting. “Joining Daesh at that time was very easy; it only needed one telephone request”. Individual recruits, on the other hand, were still scrutinised much more seriously, according to a former IS-K member who was recruited via social media.

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Dr Bashir relied on an initially small number of Salafi elders willing to cooperate, and on several Hanafi elders who had connections with some IS-K members or lived in areas affected by the IS-K presence. Former IS-K sources confirm the role of the elders in negotiating their surrender. In the words of one, “When we decided to surrender to the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate, again we used the local elders to negotiate and mediate our surrendering with Dr Bashir”. The GDI arranged for the surrendering IS-K members and their community elders to guarantee under oath that they would not rejoin IS-K or in any way oppose the Emirate. The elders agreed to take responsibility and inform the Emirate’s authorities of any violations.

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On the basis of Dr Bashir’s exploratory efforts in 2021, the GDI and other components of the Taliban’s security apparatus established communication with community elders. The village elders were tasked by the Taliban GDI with negotiating the surrender of any Salafi elder with whom they came into contact. The Taliban identified useful contacts among the elders, and the district governor or the chief of police regularly visited them, as often as weekly or fortnightly.

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The official claim is that in 2021–22 some 500 IS-K members (commanders, fighters, recruiters, support elements and sympathisers) from Nangarhar, Kunar and Laghman surrendered as a result of Bashir’s combination of ruthless repression and negotiations with the community elders. This figure is likely to be somewhat inflated. One of the surrendering IS-K member noted that “there were lots of people among those 70 who surrendered who were not Daesh members; I didn’t recognise many of them”. A source in the Taliban’s provincial administration acknowledged that some Salafi elders, anxious to please the new regime, convinced some members of the community to pose as IS-K members and “surrender”. This was discovered later by the GDI but, overall, the elders-focused effort was still rated highly successful. A police source estimated that 60% of those surrendering were IS-K members from eastern Afghanistan and 40% were civilian supporters. Even a source hostile to the Taliban supported a positive assessment of the campaign, acknowledging that in a single village in Sorkhrod, three IS-K members surrendered to the Taliban. Various ex-IS-K interviewees confirmed having surrendered as part of large groups of IS-K members.

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The majority surrendered because of agreements between the GDI and community elders, but some surrendered directly to the GDI, after Bashir managed to reach out to them in the districts and convince them that surrendering was the best option for them. Bashir’s argument to these IS-K members was that it was not in the Salafi community’s interest to have another war, which would be fought ruthlessly by the Taliban, including in their villages.

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With a much reduced IS-K ability to threaten waverers, due to the group’s weakness on the ground, the path was clear for the Taliban to expand their tactics of negotiating deals with community elders to Kunar province. Indeed, to some extent during 2022 the stream of surrendering IS-K members, which had started in Nangarhar in autumn 2021, spread to Kunar. Here too, the Taliban sought the cooperation of the community elders to convince IS-K members to lay down arms. Some Salafi ulema were also involved. Although the surrenders were fewer than in the neighbouring province, the “tens of Daesh members” who surrendered to the Taliban as a result of the mediation of the elders represented a warning to IS-K. The formula adopted was the same as in Nangarhar, with surrendering members taking an oath never to rejoin IS-K and the elders guaranteeing for them. As in Nangarhar, some IS-K members in Kunar reached out directly to the GDI to negotiate their surrender.

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At the same time, the Taliban continued their local negotiations with elders in Nangarhar. The flow of surrenders therefore continued in 2022. The last group to surrender in 2022 was composed of some 70 members from Nangarhar, who defected in the autumn. As of January 2023, the Taliban believed that 90% of the IS-K structure in Nangarhar had been wiped out; the Taliban were aware of the existence of some IS-K cells, but deemed them too weak to launch attacks. It is difficult to say whether the Taliban’s estimate was correct, but undoubtedly IS-K had taken a big hit in Nangarhar.

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Those who laid down weapons sometimes reported being treated decently by the Taliban; others reported not being treated very well, with Taliban and pro-Taliban villagers looking down on them. Still, they appreciated that they could live with their families, even if most of them had had to relocate to avoid IS-K retaliation. There were complaints about being required to report to the police station every week or two, and not being allowed to move around without permission. Surrendered IS-K members also complained that the Taliban were not implementing their side of the deal – specifically, giving financial support to those who had surrendered. One of those interviewed noted that this would make it hard for the Taliban to convince more to surrender. Another complaint was that those who stayed in the districts did not feel safe from IS-K.

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The fact that madrasas and some mosques were still closed also upset the reconciled IS-K members, in part because the surrender agreements included a clause about reopening them. Reportedly, the surrendering IS-K members had been promised government jobs, the freedom to live anywhere in the country and the receipt of cash payments for six months. In practice, no cash was paid (although some food and some benefits in kind such as blankets were provided), and the surrendering men were only allowed to choose to live in their own community or in the district centre. Some surrendered IS-K members hinted that the reason why surrenders have slowed down was to be found in the violation or non-implementation of these agreements.

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Elite Bargaining with the Salafi Ulema

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In 2020–21, the Taliban did not show much faith in the opportunities offered by intra-Afghan talks, nor were their counterparts in Kabul able to pursue those talks with any degree of effectiveness. Instead, the Taliban sought to co-opt local and regional elites associated with the government of the Islamic Republic. It is probably in a similar spirit and informed by this experience that the Taliban approached the prospect of negotiations for resolving the conflict with IS-K. The Taliban were well aware of the links between IS-K and much of the Salafi clergy. Support from Salafi communities in the east and northeast had proved essential for IS-K to be able to put down roots there. Many Salafi preachers were recruiting for IS-K in this period, as sources within the community admit, and Salafi madrasas and schools in Kabul were sending numerous recruits to IS-K. Much of the Salafi youth joined during this phase. For the Taliban, driving a wedge between IS-K and the Salafi community, from which the former draws most of its support base, must have seemed an attractive opportunity.

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A group of Salafi ulema had already sought an understanding with the Taliban in 2020, as IS-K was losing ground quite fast in the east. A delegation of senior Salafi ulema, led by one of the most senior figures, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, met the Taliban’s emir, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and other senior Taliban in 2020, offering support to the Taliban in exchange for the cessation of violence and reprisals against civilians. The Emirate’s authorities again welcomed delegations of Salafi ulema in Kabul in 2021, reconfirming the agreement with the Salafi ulema and reissuing orders that the Salafis should not be targeted. After that, attacks and harassment of the Salafis reduced, even if some Taliban commanders continued behaving with hostility towards Salafis.

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However, the terms of the agreement were that the Taliban would not allow the Salafi preachers to proselytise, and the madrasas that had been shut on grounds that they had been recruiting for IS-K remained closed. Only the mosques were reopened. Moreover, some senior clerics, accused of links to IS-K, remained in prison: Sheikh Bilal Irfan; Sheikh Qari Muzamil; Sheikh Sardar Wali; Sheikh Jawid; and Delawar Mansur. The Salafi ulema interpreted the closure of the madrasas as temporary and expected that after some time the community could return to its quietist stance, which had in the past (before 2015) been the predominant position among Afghan Salafis.

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Nevertheless, even after the second agreement in 2021 many “hot-headed” young members of the community stayed with IS-K. One of the Salafi ulema pledging allegiance to the Emirate admitted in a private interview that the Salafi clerics remain opposed to Hanafi Islam, but that they did not think IS-K stood a chance against the Taliban, and that it was not in the interest of the community to fight. These clerics, however, did not have control over the youth who were still with IS-K.

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On the other side, among the Taliban and the Hanafi ulema, there were voices of moderation, especially among the ulema, who were even willing to tolerate Salafi proselytising – generously funded from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan – on the grounds that otherwise the Salafis would continue being driven towards IS-K. An imam in Jalalabad expressed what might be defined as the midway solution preferred by the Taliban’s leadership, as discussed above: avoid identifying all Salafis as linked to IS-K; leave the Salafis alone; but ban them from proselytising. His words reflected angst about the seemingly unstoppable spread of Salafism: “I am living among Salafi scholars and followers; they are becoming bigger and bigger every day, they have very good financial sources in Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries … to expand their activities”.

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But the 2021 agreement was also opposed by many among the Taliban and the Hanafi ulema. There are many hardliners. Former Kunar governor Turabi embodied the hardline stance: repression without local reconciliation efforts. Although this approach was not effective and was opposed in Kabul, within the GDI’s ranks, Turabi still had supporters in early 2023, who argued for a crackdown on supporting networks and milieus on the grounds that the safe haven they offered was essential for IS-K operations.

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A common view among Hanafi ulema is that while there are quietist Salafis in Afghanistan who have not embraced the militant Salafism of IS-K, the popularity of IS-K among Salafis is not only due to a defensive reaction on the part of the community. They believe that jihadist Salafism has been spreading through the community. Because of this, many Hanafi ulema have been sceptical about the decision of a number of high-profile Salafi clerics to seek an understanding with the Taliban, believing it to be only a tactical decision to buy time.

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As a result of polarised views within the Taliban and among the Hanafi ulema, the policies of the Emirate concerning the Salafis have continued to fluctuate and vary from province to province, as discussed above. As a result, relations with the Salafi community have remained tense. Kunar received special treatment, with the Taliban’s leadership making clear that especially in Kunar, the GDI should only act against Salafi madrasas and mosques in the presence of solid evidence. The new policy of “working hard to give respect and value to our Salafi brothers and trying our best to finish the dispute between Taliban and Salafi” was introduced after Turabi’s dismissal, according to a source in the provincial administration. The decision was made at the top: “Taliban local leaderships have been told by our leaders in Kabul to keep a good behaviour with Salafi members in Kunar”. There was an at least partial acknowledgement that “one of the reasons why Daesh in Afghanistan became active and somewhat powerful is that some Taliban carried out aggressive acts against the Salafis in Kunar and Nangarhar”. Former IS-K members confirmed that negotiations with Salafi elders and the ulema led to the reopening in 2022 of all mosques and of the Salafi madrasa, except two, which stayed closed due to their connection to IS-K.

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Despite this “special treatment”, a Salafi a’lim estimated in April 2023 that the community in Kunar was split between those who have functional relations with the Taliban and those who are hostile. One Salafi elder estimated that in his district of Dangam, 30% of the Salafi community was on friendly terms with the Taliban and the remaining 70% had tensions. It did not help that the Salafis remained marginalised in Kunar even in early 2023, as all the provincial officials were Hanafi, with only a few rank-and-file Taliban from the Salafi community. The Taliban have regular meetings with the district shura (council) and occasional meetings with the village shuras, but no Salafis were included in the district shura or in at least some of the village shuras. Hence, a Salafi elder complained that “the Taliban don’t want to hear too many complaints from the Salafis, nor their views”. Clearly, while attempting to defuse tension, the Taliban seemed to have no intention of moving towards an elite bargain.

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Even Taliban sources acknowledge that friction between Salafis and Hanafis has persisted. For example, throughout 2022–23, the Taliban were insisting that all imams wish a long life to the Taliban’s amir (or “head of state”), Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, during Friday prayers; the Salafi ulema in Kunar refused to comply. This refusal did not lead to a new crackdown, but it shows that the Salafi ulema were not entirely committed to supporting the Emirate, despite their pledge. The Taliban had offered them a safety guarantee as subjects of the Emirate, but it appeared that the Salafis wanted an elite bargain, that is, at least a share of power and influence. As a result, the Taliban’s engagement with the Salafi ulema went cold towards the end of 2022. After two or three meetings during 2021–22, meetings stopped, and Taliban officials took the view that the Salafi ulema were not willing to fully implement their part of the deal and that several of them were still supporting IS-K.

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There appears to have been no talk at any stage of incorporating significant numbers of Salafi clerics into the ulema councils at the provincial and national levels, which would have been a major step towards an elite bargain with Salafi elites.

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IV. IS-K’s Response to the Taliban’s Tactics

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While the Taliban’s efforts posed major challenges to IS-K, not all the techniques discussed above were threatening or, indeed, were perceived as such. IS-K does not appear to have been concerned about indiscriminate repression against its supporting milieus, and its only apparent reaction was intensifying efforts to present itself as the defender of the Salafi community. Its focus was instead on responding to the Taliban’s choking-off effort, especially their campaign to take full control of territory and population.

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The Response to Choking-Off Tactics

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Even if the Taliban were not, immediately after their takeover, in a position to organise a major military campaign in the far east of Afghanistan (Kunar and Nuristan), IS-K clearly understood the potential threat this would represent. By the time the Taliban took over in August 2021, IS-K had long opted out of a direct confrontation with them, after it had emerged in 2019–20 that its forces could not stand up to the Taliban on an open battlefield. This perception of a major threat from a Taliban assault on IS-K bases in the far east only increased after August 2021, given that the Taliban were at that point no longer busy fighting the forces of the previous regime. IS-K soon relinquished the residual territorial control it still had (see the discussion of choking-off tactics above). The group appears to have hoped to delay the expected Taliban onslaught in the east, or to make it unsustainable by waging a guerrilla war against the Taliban forces deployed there, forcing them to divert forces – while at the same time mitigating the impact of choke-off tactics by reducing the number of non-local members (who were harder to hide and more difficult to support) and creating an extensive underground network.

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Delay and Diversion

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While seeking to retain control over parts of Kunar and Nuristan, IS-K largely switched to asymmetric tactics, such as intensified urban terrorism, hit-and- run raids, ambushes and mines. These efforts produced few results initially, and IS-K’s leaders (the leader of IS-K and the military council) had to keep thinking of new strategies. A plan for sending cells to cities where IS-K was not yet active, such as Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-i Sharif, was hatched in spring 2021 – that is, before the Taliban took power – although it was not fully implemented until August 2021.

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Essentially, the IS-K leadership decided to keep the Taliban busy by going on the offensive in the cities, calculating that by risking a few tens of cells it could force the Taliban to commit tens of thousands to guarding the cities. The campaign started somewhat slowly, due to the limited capabilities of existing IS-K underground networks in Kabul and Jalalabad.

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During the last five months of 2021, IS-K was able to increase the number of its large terrorist attacks in Kabul to five, from two in the first half of 2021. Urban guerrilla actions also continued in Jalalabad after a short lull, opening up with a series of six bomb attacks in September, followed by some months of urban guerrilla warfare against members of the Taliban. Taliban sources described the situation in Jalalabad at that time as “daily IS-K attacks”.

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At the same time, during the chaotic power transition of summer 2021, IS-K was able to transfer multiple cells to the cities, which reinforced its presence in Kabul and Jalalabad but also allowed it to expand its terrorist campaign to cities previously unaffected by this campaign. Cells were thus established in Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i Sharif, Charikar, Kunduz, Faizabad and Gulbahar. Among the cells were recruiting teams which targeted, in particular, university campuses. As a result, while IS-K was able to intensify its campaign of terrorist attacks in the cities, it was also hoping that the new urban underground structure would become self-sustainable. An IS-K source acknowledged that the group exploited the chaotic period of the Taliban’s takeover to send more of its cells into the cities. He explained that “because different groups of Taliban entered Jalalabad city and other cities of Afghanistan from the mountains and the districts, it was very difficult for the Taliban … to distinguish between Daesh and Taliban members there”.

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An IS-K source estimated in early 2022 that the Kabul city contingent, following years of decline, had climbed back up to 300 members, in two separate structures – one aimed at preparing and carrying out attacks, and the other at recruiting and propaganda operations. There seemed to be a real opportunity for catching the new regime off guard, with the Taliban still surprised to find themselves in power and dealing with multiple crises in their efforts to keep the Afghan state afloat. While the Taliban were known to be more than a match for IS-K in a conventional fight, IS-K hoped that the Taliban’s lack of experience in counterterrorism would allow several hundred terrorists to cause havoc in the cities, as even Taliban officials confirmed to the International Crisis Group that this was the case.

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Aside from its intensity, in terms of target selection the campaign of terrorist attacks in Kabul was a continuation of IS-K’s earlier campaign against the previous government. The targets of the new phase of the campaign were also religious minorities, such as the Sikhs and, most of all, the Shia community. Aside from forcing the Taliban to divert forces away from the east, the primary intent seems to have been to create chaos in the cities, turning the sizeable Shia community against the Taliban (for their failure to protect it) and exposing the incompetence of the new regime, especially in urban security. In spring 2022, the High Council of IS-K decided, in the context of some fine-tuning of its strategic plan, to further reinforce the focus on terrorism in the main cities, targeting the Shia community via a wide selection of very soft targets, such as schools and mosques. Protecting so many potential targets would have required the Taliban to commit significant human resources, to the detriment of the wider counter-IS effort.

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Operationally, IS-K’s campaign in 2022 produced some visible results. According to a respondent, IS-K’s “research and inquiry” department, which undertakes analysis for the leadership, produced in June 2022 an internal report indicating that in the spring of 2022, IS-K had achieved the highest number of “highlight” (that is, headline-making) attacks and military activities in three years. Impartial data collection shows that the pace of bomb attacks peaked above 10 per month in April–July 2022, but started declining in the latter part of that year, to between three and six per month (see Figure 1). This might have been due to increasingly effective Taliban counterterrorism. However, it is also likely that relocation from the far east had largely been completed, and that IS-K downscaled terrorist attacks in Kabul to a more sustainable level.

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image01 +▲ Figure 1: IS-K Activity and Taliban Counterterrorism Operations, 2022–23. Source: Afghan Witness, “Taliban Continue Raids Against ISKP in May, Claim Killing of Deputy Governor in Kabul”, 1 June 2023. In the figure, “Arrests” and “Clashes/Raid” refer to Taliban operations against IS-K. Reproduced with permission.

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Mitigation

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To lessen the need for supplies inside Afghanistan and also being increasingly unable to protect non-Afghan members, in late 2021 and early 2022, IS-K moved more of its Pakistani members across the border. Taliban sources too noted the disappearance of not only Pakistanis but also Central Asians, Chechens and other non-Afghans from the east, and assumed they too had crossed the border.

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The process of evacuating the bases in the east took eight months; even for some time after this a substantial number of IS-K members, especially leadership and administrative cadres, were hiding in caves and other secret locations, while their relocation was being arranged. The permanent bases were replaced during 2022 by an underground infrastructure, not only in Kunar but also in parts of Nangarhar, with secret cells established in Achin, Naziyan, Lal Pur, Pachir wa Agam, Bati Kot, Mohmand Dara and Jalalabad city. Even as the Taliban kept destroying its cells in Jalalabad, IS-K was able to maintain a presence there. Local elders confirmed the disappearance of obvious signs of IS-K presence, but believed that the group maintained secret cells. In January 2023, a source in the Taliban’s administration stated that IS-K’s presence in Nangarhar consisted of some IS-K cells in Jalalabad and one to two cells each in some districts, such as Achin and Naziyan. As of March 2023, the police estimated that there were 16 IS-K cells in Jalalabad, based on the confessions of detainees, but the cells operated independently and tracking them down was difficult.

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Parallel to the move underground, IS-K also sought to adopt a mobile infrastructure to support the small, dispersed cells, a process that continued throughout 2022. A year after the spring 2022 strategic shift was decided, one IS-K source described as an accomplished fact a new, leaner and more mobile infrastructure that had replaced the old fixed bases:

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Daesh has training centres and lots of secret cells and secret military bases in Kunar province, but they are changing their locations all the time. Daesh is on the move – its training centre, military bases [and] secret cells are all moving and changing every three or four months. When a member of Daesh is arrested by the Taliban or surrenders, Daesh immediately finds out where these guys were trained, which posts or secret cells they were assigned to, then it changes the locations.

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Taliban sources confirmed that IS-K was moving people to the northeast and north and even claimed that the collapse of IS-K activities in Nangarhar was in part due to IS-K moving out.

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While IS-K implemented these mitigating actions quickly, it remains the case that they were not enough to prevent the group’s operations from being constrained. IS-K’s messaging to its members did not mention the coming downgrade of the east, for good reasons. It appears to have been a difficult decision to take, given that a large majority of the group’s Afghan members were from the east and had families there. As of early 2022, IS-K sources were still adamant that they would soon go on the offensive, that their bases in the east were safe and that they had enough manpower to defeat the Taliban in the east. The rationale for having IS-K’s main bases in eastern Afghanistan (Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan) was still being promulgated by IS-K sources at least until mid-2022: “there are many Salafi people and madrasas in these provinces and most of the followers of Salafism are supporting IS-K”. It took until 2023 for IS-K sources to begin showing awareness and acceptance of the fact that IS-K had given up any ambition to hold territory, at least in the short and medium term.

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The constraints that the transition placed on IS-K’s operations are evident when we look at its guerrilla operations in the east. While the transition was ongoing, IS-K, remarkably, sought to keep waging a guerrilla war in eastern Afghanistan. The guerrilla campaign was always limited in scope, affecting only the provinces of Kunar and, to a lesser extent, Nangarhar. Guerrilla activities intensified from late summer 2021, especially in Ghaziabad, Naray and Shegal. Though these mostly consisted of small hit-and-run attacks on Taliban posts and small ambushes, they were beginning to annoy the Taliban. In spring 2022, the High Council of IS-K, while deciding to intensify the terrorist campaign in the cities, also confirmed the decision to continuing the guerrilla war against the Taliban, where possible. However, the new structure left behind in the east proved unable or unwilling to support a steady insurgency there. IS-K guerrilla attacks in Nangarhar remained especially rare. One of the last few recorded attacks was in February 2022, an ambush in Achin which killed two members of the Taliban.

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In Kunar, the picture was similar. In one of the worst incidents, a convoy was ambushed in Shegal and “several Taliban fighters were martyred”. In Dangam in Kunar, some lingering IS-K presence continued in the forested area, without much military activity. Those remaining were local members, reportedly being kept in reserve and perhaps supporting the planning of attacks elsewhere. Most IS-K members had reportedly moved to northeastern and northern Afghanistan (see below). This is likely to have affected the pace of guerrilla operations in the east, not only because of lower numbers, but also because to local members the option of lying low and hiding was more likely to seem viable than it would to their foreign and out-of-area comrades. As the presence of non-local fighters dried out, the level of guerrilla activity declined further. An independent assessment found that IS-K was able to sustain the number of guerrilla attacks at between five and 10 per month during the first half of 2022. The numbers, however, collapsed to between two and five in the second half of the year (see Figure 1, where guerrilla attacks are listed under the category “Gun”).

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IS-K also tried to adapt in response to the Taliban’s financial disruption operations. Confronted with the news that IS-K networks in Turkey had taken a major hit, IS-K sources indicated that the organisation coped successfully, reactivating its old financial hub in the UAE, where the abundance of Afghan hawala traders would make it easier to find complicit ones. The source had to acknowledge that there was a bottleneck at the receiving end, in Afghanistan, as hawala traders were wary of getting caught. He tried hard to present an optimistic picture, noting that other ways of transferring money, through complicit businesses based in Turkey and through flights between Istanbul and Kabul, with the help of some personnel at Kabul’s airport, were being tested. One of his colleagues also suggested that the financial strangulation of IS-K was lessening as of December 2022–January 2023.

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The Response to the Reconciliation and Reintegration Deals

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The other main concern for IS-K appears to have been about countering the Taliban’s local reconciliation and reintegration efforts, which had the support of some Salafi elders in the villages (see discussion above). The group appears to have seen this as the biggest medium-term threat. IS-K started in 2021–22 to bring pressure on the elders not to facilitate negotiations between IS-K members and the Taliban. One surrendering member heard from villagers that “Daesh is trying a lot to undermine this process. Several elders who were secretly facilitating the negotiations and connecting IS-K members with the Taliban for their surrender have been threatened”.

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Others who surrendered confirmed the same, adding that threats consisted of death threats and threats to burn down the homes of anybody making deals. One of the surrendered members claimed he and two fellow former comrades in arms received threats from IS-K; the group, he said, threatened to “set fire to my house and throw me into the blaze”. Two elders of his village, who had helped the Taliban, he said, were also threatened, and as a result stopped being involved in negotiating surrenders. One even reported that nine surrendered IS-K members ended up rejoining IS-K in Nangarhar, although it is not clear whether this was because of the threats or because of the poor Taliban implementation of the deals. IS-K also increased counter-intelligence efforts among its own ranks. These countermeasures were deemed to be effective by a number of former IS-K members, who believed that surrenders were diminishing or even ceasing. This suggests that IS-K feared the reconciliation/reintegration plans much more than it did indiscriminate repression.

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The Response to the Taliban’s Tentative Elite Bargaining

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Because of the lack of Taliban success in negotiating with the Salafi ulema, IS-K may not have considered a response to their negotiations with the Salafi ulema a priority – although it is likely that it brought pressure to bear on the Salafi ulema to stay away from the Taliban. IS-K’s short campaign of attacks on pro-Taliban clerics in the summer of 2022 might also have been intended to provoke Taliban retaliation against Salafi clerics and spoil the Taliban’s discussions with them. The killing of Rahman Ansari in Herat in September 2022 might have been a warning as well, as Ansari was a Salafi preacher who had pledged loyalty to the Taliban. IS-K did not claim the killing. The campaign was abandoned in autumn, probably as it was becoming clear that IS-K did not need to be concerned about Taliban negotiations with the Salafi ulema.

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IS-K Counterattacks

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While IS-K sought to counter Taliban tactics or at least to limit the damage, its leadership also decided to try re-seizing the long-lost initiative by striking the Taliban where it felt they were more vulnerable. The urban terrorism campaign, discussed above, was more of a diversion than a counter-offensive. Instead, IS-K appears to have placed its hopes for turning around the situation in its expansion in the north. Plans to expand recruitment in the north started in mid-2020 (after an earlier aborted effort in 2017–18). Small numbers of Afghan Pashtuns and even Pakistanis were also sent north. After 2021, these efforts were strengthened, and even moving the IS-K headquarters there in the future was considered.

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In mid-2022, the IS-K leadership was reportedly still in Kunar, but the new phase of the transfer to the north had been initiated a few months earlier. The movement of people and assets to the north and northeast continued, as both a Taliban police officer and a local elder confirmed. IS-K sources talked up the migration with the claim that it was about taking jihad to Central Asia. IS-K sources spoke about training centres being established in Badakhshan, Kunduz and Jawzjan, with plans to open one in Balkh. As IS-K also dramatically expanded its social media activities, it began releasing significant quantities of propaganda, such as statements and pamphlets in Uzbekistani, Tajikistani and Uyghur, in order to support its claims of imminent expansion into Central Asia.

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IS-K seems to have had expectations of rapid expansion into Faryab and the northwest in spring 2022, exploiting intra-Taliban friction. More generally, it is clear that one of the main reasons for the shift in focus northwards was the hope for major defections from the ranks of the Taliban there. That did not happen on any significant scale. When asked for details, an IS-K source could only provide modest defection figures for the entire August 2021 to mid-2022 period: “a few commanders in the north”, with some more in talks as of mid-2022.

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Another aspect of IS-K’s “counter-offensive” was to make up for the group’s limited achievements with media-focused symbolic attacks, such as rocket attacks from Afghan territory on Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which caused no damage but won high-profile exposure in the media. An important part of IS-K’s strategy was integrating its military and propaganda campaigns. Graphic details of the terrorist campaign were used by IS-K social media propaganda to project an image of strength and power that was out of all proportion with the reality. Overall, the leadership of IS-K succeeded fairly well in hiding the extent of its difficulties. The regional and world media, as well as policymakers, continued to portray it as a highly threatening organisation, even though its military achievements were almost negligible.

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Although it is difficult to measure how IS-K members and sympathisers reacted to this propaganda, it is clear that one of the intents was to shore up the morale of increasingly dispersed members and convince them that the jihad was succeeding. IS-K tried to diminish the Taliban’s achievements and to stimulate feelings of revenge, for example by claiming that the Taliban had deliberately killed family members of IS-K members during their raids on city cells.

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Initially the Taliban were taken aback by the dramatically expanded output of IS-K’s rather slick propaganda. The GDI responded by targeting IS-K activism on social media, exploiting the recruitment efforts of IS-K to infiltrate its own agents, and succeeding in capturing some online activists. It also managed to seize control of some accounts linked to IS-K, and to develop more effective counter-propaganda. A key theme of Taliban propaganda, distributed through the regime’s media as well as on social media, was to portray IS-K as heretics. A pro-Taliban a’lim argued that IS-K members “should be treated like khawarij [heretics] and their Sharia sentences should be hanging or beheading”. Another a’lim argued that IS-K members “are all khawarij” and that the doctrine is clear that under Islamic law, the punishment for this is death. Overall, however, at the end of 2022 online propaganda was the only domain in which IS-K dominated.

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The Overall Impact on IS-K in 2021–22

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Although IS-K propaganda continually claimed that its numbers were rising, when asked for details, sources provided numbers that in fact showed that the group’s size had remained fairly stable in 2021–22, at just under 8,000 men in total. Most of these in June 2022 were already claimed to be in the north/northeast, according to a source who was himself about to be transferred there from the east.

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IS-K sources and propaganda also claimed that recruitment was strong in 2022. When challenged for figures, two IS-K sources provided roughly consistent figures: total new recruitment into IS-K was estimated at 150–200 per month in mid-2022. The main sources of recruits were still identified as “Salafi madrasas, schools, mosques [and] scholars”. As noted elsewhere, IS-K recruitment in universities can be estimated in the low hundreds per year. Overall, these figures seem relatively modest, considering that IS-K was taking losses and suffering defections, and they are consistent with a substantial stagnation in IS-K’s strength during this period.

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In sum, IS-K was able to preserve its manpower and appears to have tailored the level and character of its activities to its ability to recruit and, presumably, spend. During this period, however, the Taliban were rapidly expanding their manpower. IS-K’s transition to a fully underground structure had been fairly smooth, with diversions proving rather successful in distracting the Taliban for some months. It is, however, clear that the group had not been able to seize back the initiative and that its financial difficulties seemed to be worsening.

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Conclusion

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How did the Taliban structure their post-August 2021 mix of tactics for countering IS-K? And how successful were these in fighting the group? Selective violence quickly became the default choice of Taliban policymakers. Identifying the boundaries between extremists, supporting milieus and “quietists” was, however, always contentious. It should also be noted that the Taliban appear to have purposely used bursts of indiscriminate violence to warn hostile populations of what an all-out war with the Emirate would mean for them, and to intimidate them into submission. An aspect of the Taliban’s counter-IS effort that emerges clearly from this paper is that repression, even indiscriminate repression, and reconciliation deals were seen as functional to each other: the stick and the carrot. The new state had to show that it meant business, and that it was able to impose intolerable suffering on the Salafi community if it refused to collaborate.

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IS-K’s leadership appears to have underestimated the ability of the Taliban to adapt quickly. Taliban intelligence, despite some obvious limitations, was able to quickly establish a wide and thick network of informers. As insurgents, the Taliban had had a well-developed intelligence network, and they adapted this; they also seem to have prioritised investment in their intelligence agency. Given IS’s reputation for ruthlessness, it was easy for them to obtain the cooperation of bystanders. At the national leadership level, there seems to have been an understanding of the risk of getting trapped in a cycle of violence, and there were interventions to contain the excesses of provincial officials, especially as the new security apparatus consolidated. The Taliban showed their ability to adapt by developing the sophisticated means to make selective repression viable, for example through setting up social media infiltration teams. Still, when selective repression proved difficult to implement because of insufficient intelligence, local Taliban officials usually had no qualms about reverting to indiscriminate violence, even if the scale never approached the main wave of violence of autumn 2021. It is noteworthy in this regard that the Taliban failed to apply the rule of law to counter-IS efforts. The system remained prone to abuse even from the standpoint of Islamic law, and avoiding excesses was always dependent on interventions from the higher leadership levels.

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The Taliban also tentatively began working at local reconciliation deals with Salafi communities, but the effort was weakly supported by Kabul and, as of early 2023, it was poorly followed up. National-level talks with the Salafi ulema helped the Taliban shift away from indiscriminate violence, but did not lead to any progress towards an elite bargain. The Taliban were offering peace to the Salafis as subjects of the Emirate, but the Salafi ulema were seeking inclusion.

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Where the Taliban were most effective was with choking-off tactics, constraining the ability of IS-K to recruit, resupply and keep money coming in. They waited until they had sufficient manpower available before mounting large-scale military sweeps, to be able to hold the ground afterwards. If they had been engaging in ineffective sweeps, as the previous regime had, they would have alienated the population for no gain.

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A pertinent question is how much of the Taliban’s counter-IS effort has derived from their previous experience as insurgents. While none of the sources directly commented on this point, it seems likely that their reluctance to engage in big military sweeps might derive from having experienced the ineffectiveness of such tactics when they were on the receiving end of them before August 2021. Similarly, having had to recruit new insurgents for 20 years, the Taliban seem well aware of the greater difficulties that an insurgent organisation faces when it lacks territorial control. The Taliban furthermore always argued that the indiscriminate revenge-taking and repression practised by Afghan and US security forces in 2001–04 drove many into their ranks, enabling them to start their insurgency. In the current case, however, they have struggled to implement a coherent policy of selective repression, showing perhaps that learning lessons could well be disrupted by the emotional legacy of a long war. Another example of how hatred for the enemy gets in the way of rational policymaking is the Taliban’s failure to follow up on their good start on reconciliation and reintegration.

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IS-K undoubtedly proved a resilient organisation after August 2021. Despite facing morale and financial issues, it focused on an urban strategy while trying to strengthen its positions in northern Afghanistan. Militarily speaking, it did not mount a serious threat to the Taliban. The leadership opted to spare its fighters, soon even giving up early attempts to wage a guerrilla war in the east. IS-K tried instead to keep the Taliban busy guarding the cities against a massive wave of urban terrorism, while at the same time expecting its efforts to establish itself firmly in the north to be bearing fruit in the medium term. Time, however, was not on IS-K’s side, and the group’s financial difficulties only increased during 2022.

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IS-K appeared to be in a corner by the end of 2022 and early 2023, in good part due to Taliban efforts to counter it. The organisation was surviving by keeping a very low profile, but this meant limited recruitment opportunities and, importantly, far too little fundraising inside Afghanistan. The dependence on money coming from abroad was increasingly proving a liability during 2022. Without financial resources, IS-K was not well positioned to exploit the Taliban’s remaining vulnerability: the fact that the Salafi community, while in general acknowledging a reduction of the pressure exercised by the Emirate, still feels oppressed and very pessimistic about its future under the new regime.

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It seems clear that IS-K was very vulnerable to the reconciliation efforts deployed by the Taliban, and that a decisive defeat of the organisation could have been achieved if the Taliban had followed through and implemented their reconciliation packages consistently. Instead, as the IS-K threat appeared to be receding in the second half of 2022 and Taliban self-confidence grew, reconciliation efforts lost steam, despite evidence suggesting that this was the most effective path. It was assumed that defectors would easily reintegrate with the help of the community elders, who, however, received no support from the Emirate. The main reasons for this appear to have been animosity against IS-K within the Taliban’s ranks, fuelled by the considerable amount of blood spilled; resentment over the allocation of scarce financial resources to paying reconciled opponents; and the failure to make significant progress towards a wider elite bargain involving Salafi elites.

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Time will tell if the failed reconciliation process is going to be a great missed opportunity for the Taliban. IS-K’s financial weakness could lead to its terminal decline without much Taliban effort, of course, but financial difficulties could still be reversed in the future, in which case the Taliban might regret having neglected their promising reconciliation efforts. While the strong foreign component of IS-K is clearly not susceptible to being enticed to reintegrate, IS-K nowadays needs Afghan participation more than ever – it cannot rely on Pakistanis for dispersed underground operations in cities and villages. If the Taliban were able to substantially cut into IS-K’s approximately 3,000 Afghan members, the group’s viability as an insurgent organisation in Afghanistan would be comprehensively undermined.

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Antonio Giustozzi is the senior research fellow at RUSI in the Terrorism and Conflict research group. He has been working in and on Afghanistan in various respects since the 1990s and has published extensively on the conflict and specifically the Taliban and the Islamic State. His main research interests are global jihadism in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, the security sector, state-building and insurgencies. He is currently project director for Strive Afghanistan, which is pioneering new P/CVE approaches. He is also associated with the LSE (South Asia Centre) and was previously associated with War Studies at KCL.

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UNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.34 © MMXXIII ♢ C2
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Taliban’s Campaign Against IS

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Antonio Giustozzi | 2023.10.25
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This paper examines the strategies employed by the Taliban in response to the threat posed by the Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K) in 2021–22.

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Blockchain For Democracies

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The Orient Express

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UK In N. European Security

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James Byrne, et al. | 2023.10.16
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Dozens of high-resolution satellite images taken in recent months reveal that Russia has likely begun shipping North Korean munitions at scale, opening a new supply route that could have profound consequences for the war in Ukraine and international security dynamics in East Asia.

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Ed Arnold | 2023.10.17
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This Policy Brief is to explain why the UK has chosen to explicitly prioritise the security of Northern Europe following Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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Israel Confronts Hamas

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Containing A Catastrophe

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Jack Watling | 2023.10.16
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The legal and ethical challenges of operating in densely populated areas are going to be a tragic constant of 21st century warfare, with no easy solutions.

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Tobias Borck | 2023.10.17
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As Israel prepares to launch a ground offensive in Gaza, there is a real risk that the war could escalate into a wider conflagration. Efforts to contain the conflict will test key relationships across the region.

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Change Or False Alarm?

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The Orient Express

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Sari Arho Havrén | 2023.10.13
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A potential shift in China’s approach to nuclear weapons could indicate that it is taking a page from Moscow’s book.

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James Byrne, et al. | 2023.10.16
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Dozens of high-resolution satellite images taken in recent months reveal that Russia has likely begun shipping North Korean munitions at scale, opening a new supply route that could have profound consequences for the war in Ukraine and international security dynamics in East Asia.

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Integrate Offence And Defence

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Israel Confronts Hamas

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Sidharth Kaushal, et al. | 2023.10.11
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This article articulates pathways forward in a future operating environment dominated by stalemates and threats to national homelands.

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Jack Watling | 2023.10.16
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The legal and ethical challenges of operating in densely populated areas are going to be a tragic constant of 21st century warfare, with no easy solutions.

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Manoeuvre Or Defence?

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Change Or False Alarm?

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Sidharth Kaushal, et al. | 2023.10.10
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This article examines the points of divergence between two major schools of thought within the Israel Defense Forces regarding how best to defend the state against evolving threats.

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Sari Arho Havrén | 2023.10.13
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A potential shift in China’s approach to nuclear weapons could indicate that it is taking a page from Moscow’s book.

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Israel And The Palestinians

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Seize Initiative In Ukraine

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Tobias Borck | 2023.10.09
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Nothing will be the same after the weekend’s carnage in Israel. The Palestinian question is back on the agenda, and with a vengeance. So will be Israel’s response.

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Seth G. Jones, et al. | 2023.10.12
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Ukrainian forces retain the initiative in the war but advanced an average of only 90 meters per day on the southern front during the peak of their summer offensive, according to new CSIS analysis.

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In Chip Race

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Integrate Offence And Defence

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Gregory C. Allen | 2023.10.06
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With a new smartphone and new chip, Huawei has returned to the 5G smartphone business in defiance of U.S. sanctions. This report assesses the implications from this latest development for China’s AI industry and the future of semiconductor export controls.

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Sidharth Kaushal, et al. | 2023.10.11
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This article articulates pathways forward in a future operating environment dominated by stalemates and threats to national homelands.

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